


Chaos Theory for Dummies

by Synthpop



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: 5+1 Things, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Shrimpshipping, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-05-15
Packaged: 2018-11-01 04:44:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10914594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Synthpop/pseuds/Synthpop
Summary: Five times Weevil beats Rex in their made-up competitions, and one time Rex wins.





	Chaos Theory for Dummies

**Author's Note:**

> I went back and forth between dub and sub names about twenty times, before ultimately deciding that the names “Dinosaur” and “Insector” cannot be written seriously. It’s impossible. “Dr. Dinosaur will be with you shortly.” “That’s Mr. Dinosaur to you, punk.” You can’t do it. I’m sorry, but you can’t.
> 
> Despite this, the setting is still Japan… with, uh, a lot of American elements. Maybe it’s a San Fransokyo thing. (Maybe it’s best not to think too hard about it.)

**0.**

 

Weevil wasn’t the type to frequent parties. Surprisingly, being National Champion at Duel Monsters—and a washed up champion, at that—didn’t warrant many invitations to parties.

Also, Weevil Underwood didn’t like people.

Yet the one time he found himself at such a party (maybe in an effort to change his character? To step out of his comfort zone? To schmooze? He couldn’t remember), Weevil’s Duel Monsters past managed to catch up with him and punch him right in the goddamn face by manifesting physically in the form of one familiar idiot.

“Well, I’ll be damned! Look who decided to crawl out of the woodwork, eh?”

Weevil ignored the voice at first, instead focusing on rifling through the coolers of alcohol at his feet. He wasn’t one for drinking, but he could’ve sworn that he had seen somebody lug in a crate of melon soda earlier, and he was _not_ about to miss out on that. Besides, everybody he had tried to talk to thus far (cute girls, mostly, who were way too far out of his league) had treated him like he was invisible. He was sure it wasn’t he who was being addressed.

Yet the twangy voice made Weevil’s memory _ping_ with an acquainted note of distress, not unlike the ones he’d get whenever he was about to be beaten up.

He knew that voice.

Before he could deduce the reason _why_ for himself, Weevil felt himself be yanked up by the collar of his turtleneck in such a rough motion, he felt the air rush from his throat. He was about to throw an elbow back into the perpetrator’s face, when an arm hooked around his shoulders and pulled him into a half-hug, half-chokehold abomination.

From such an angle, he could make out the face of the person the arm belonged to. Not only that, but he was so damn _close_ , Weevil could feel his frizzy hair and hot breath prickling his cheeks.

And that _smile_ of his. He’d forgotten how blinding it was. (And crooked, too. He should really see a dentist about that.)

“Rex Raptor,” Weevil said through his teeth.

“Bug-brain!” The kid gave him a fierce shake that threatened to knock his glasses off his nose. “Small world, ain’t it? What’re ya doin’ in a place like this? Ya never struck me as the type’a fella to go to parties! Never seen ya at one before, anyway.”

As soon as he recovered from the sensory overload that was Rex Raptor _everywhere_ in his personal space, Weevil jabbed him in the ribcage and pushed him off. Rex took it with an “oof.”

He didn’t look different at all, Weevil thought. Granted, it had only been… wait, how many years now? One, two? Time had wormed away from him. The National Championships felt like yesterday, but he knew that wasn’t right; after all, he was going off to college next fall.

Rex still wore that stupid red beanie of his, his outfit complete with a faded _Jurassic Park_ t-shirt, ripped skinny jeans, and white top sneakers. His hair seemed longer, though just as ratty, and… ugh, he was taller. Not by much, but enough to make Weevil annoyed.

Rex cocked his head. “Do I have somethin’ on m’face?” he asked, scratching his cheek.

Ack. He’d spaced out.

“I thought this was a party for people who went to my school,” Weevil said with a careful amount of restraint. That was what the girl who sat adjacent to him in class had told her friends, anyway.

“Nah! Well, maybe, but nothin’ stays like that for long in this part’o town! I came ’cuz I heard there’d be free stuff, heh heh.”

Weevil glanced down at the coolers. He wondered if Rex had been drinking, but then quickly decided that he didn’t care.

If there was ever a sign that something was a lost cause, the appearance of National Champion Runner-Up Rex Raptor would definitely be it. It wasn’t like Weevil had been having a good time at the party, anyway: all he had done was sit in the corner of the apartment and inwardly mock people’s shitty dancing. Fun, but not fun enough.

“Wonderful. Well, I’m heading home. Have a nice—”

“Yo, what? You can’t leave already!” Rex leapt in between Weevil and the presumed direction of the exit (he couldn’t tell, what with all the tall teenagers gyrating about). “The fun just started! ’Sides, don’tcha wanna catch up? I haven’t seen ya in forever!”

“There’s a reason for that,” Weevil muttered, but he doubted Rex could hear him over the beat of the music.

“Didja stop playin’ Duel Monsters? Yeah, most people have, huh? Tourneys are pretty deserted these days.” Rex relaxed a little, shoulders slacking. He had enough faith in Weevil to assume he wasn’t going to make a break for it during their conversation, it seemed.

He was an idiot, as always.

Weevil attempted to slip past Rex on his right, but his plans were easily thwarted by Rex stepping in front of him. He tried for the left, but again—blocked. He couldn’t push by any other way, either; a perfect, encapsulating bubble of gossiping people had formed around them (or, more accurately, around the only coolers in the apartment). How he wished he was taller.

“What part of ‘I’m heading home’ can you not get through your thick skull, you Jurassic jackass?”

He had meant for his words to sound scathing, but they only made Rex’s sharky smile sharpen. “You haven’t changed at all, have ya?”

“Out of my way!”

Rex refused to budge. “I’ve been to a few local card shop tourneys here and there, but nothin’ major. Tried enterin’ that Industrial Illusions one, got my ass handed to me.” He scratched under his beanie. “Can’t keep up with all of the new shit they keep addin’ to the game. I have to ask people to let me read the description on their cards—and they’re so _long_ , jeez! I feel like a fuckin’ fossil, lemme tell ya.”

Weevil knew what he meant. In an attempt to keep Duel Monsters fresh, the card manufacturers had added a ludicrous amount of new card types and abilities. Unfortunately, most of the expansions hadn’t been well thought-out, and they ended up cluttering the meta. Half of them had been banned from competitive right from the get-go.

“Maybe you just suck,” he decided to say, “as per usual.”

Rex’s smile soured. “Whadda ’bout you, huh? I don’t recall seein’ ya place at any big events recently.”

“I’ve been playing plenty! I’m ranked Platinum on the KaibaCorp Duel Link, I’ll have you know!”

“The Duel Link? Huh. I tried it, but I couldn’t get into it. It’s not the same when your opponent ain’t in front of ya, ya feel?”

“All of the best players use it. It’s practical.”

“Yeah, ’cuz the community is too small to host anything else….”

“Nobody has the time to buzz around the entire country looking for ten magical whatevers anymore.”

Rex huffed, blowing his purple bangs out of his face. “Aww. That’s no fun at all.”

“It’s _practical_!”

“Practical, shmatical! My Duel Disk is gatherin’ dust! Plus, you know how much that crappy technology costs to maintain? Sometimes I think I should let it rust!”

“That’s just because KaibaCorp’s customer service is terrible. Get it fixed through a third party.”

“Yeah, I _know_ KaibaCorp is crappy. Another reason I don’t use the Duel Link, hah!”

He had a point, Weevil thought. If there was another option, he’d take it. Industrial Illusions didn’t do much in terms of player community, though, so there was only KaibaCorp to turn to.

Huh. He hadn’t spoken face-to-face to anyone about Duel Monsters in a long time. He had forgotten what the words tasted like in his mouth. Like salt.

He had also forgotten what it was like to hold a conversation with Rex Raptor. Rex spoke loud enough to wake a hibernating cicada, with an accented drawl that quickly became unintelligible if Weevil didn’t devote one-hundred percent attention to deciphering it. His hands constantly moved, from his pockets to his hair to his nails, and his eyes couldn’t choose where on Weevil to focus. It was like talking to an epileptic lizard with ADHD.

Yet, annoying as he was, his conversations with Rex flowed naturally. They shared common interests. The same couldn’t be said for anybody else Weevil knew—his advances in the “friend” front hadn’t progressed much in the past couple of years.

He wondered why they had fallen out of touch.

“What’s wrong, beetle-breath? Ya keep starin’ at me. Struck by my carnivorously ravishing good looks, are ya? _Haaa hah hah_!”

Never mind: he remembered.

“So you’re stickin’ around for a while,” Rex stated as fact. “You hafta! There’s supposed to be some games startin’ soon—you should join in!”

Weevil perked up at that. “Games?” he asked, scolding himself for sounding so hopeful.

“Yeah, party games! Somethin’ stupid, I bet, but a lot of fun!” He beamed. “Wanna go check ’em out?”

Not really, he thought on impulse. He didn’t know anybody at the party, and he didn’t care for drunk teenagers as his opponents. They didn’t offer enough of a challenge.

But that first part wasn’t true anymore, was it? He knew Rex. He probably knew Rex a little too well. And, even though he could squash Rex like the slimy little salamander he was, Weevil had to admit that he posed a _challenge_. Plus, as low as Weevil was on the totem pole of life, at least he would always be higher than Rex Raptor, and that was comforting in its own perverse way.

He should hang out with him more. It made him feel better about himself.

“Fine,” Weevil said, a smirk twirling the corners of his lips. “I’ll play a couple rounds. Prepare to get squished.”

“Me, squished? No way! Stompin’s reserved for slugs!”

“Please! Your prehistoric dinosaur brain couldn’t begin to fathom what I have in store for you!”

“Hah! Big words, coming from a dung beetle!”

They could have bickered like that for hours. Rex seemed perfectly content to let the conversation continue; it was Weevil who had to subtly direct his attention back to the topic of games.

“Oh, right. Almost forgot. It’s been so long—needed to flex those pun muscles again!” His tone was chipper. However, Weevil caught a glimpse of something flicker across his face—disappointment, it looked like. He was good at hiding it. (Good enough to pose as a challenge, but not good enough to win.)

Weevil hummed.

Oh, how he regretted coming to this stupid party.

“I’m always around,” Weevil mumbled, hoping the invitation would speak for itself.

Rex stared at him. “So am I, y’know.”

“Excuse me for not contacting you earlier. If you haven’t noticed by now, I’ll spell it out for you: I don’t like you.”

“I don’t like you, either,” Rex said with a smile.

God, he was insufferable.

Weevil was about to give up—weasel out of the party while he had the chance—but Rex spoke up just in time. “Doin’ anything tomorrow?”

“Studying.” He didn’t know why he deflected the invite, considering he was the one who had incited it. Force of habit, he guessed.

“Well, I’m free. How’s about I text you?”

Weevil had deleted his number ages ago, but he chose not to tell him.

“How about,” he said, jaw clenched, “we get to the games.”

Rex laughed—a loud, nasally grunt of a laugh, one that made Weevil feel the need to pick at his ears. Yet, at the same time, it was _familiar_ , and his knees wobbled at their joints as he was fifteen again, all smirky-eyed and cunning and mean. And Rex was there too, like he always had been—laughing, snorting, and being an insufferable idiot, as always.

“C’mon,” Rex said, offering a hand that Weevil didn’t take, “let’s get goin’.”

 

**1.**

 

The so-called “games” that drunk teenagers opted for were not the games of skill Weevil was comfortable with. But at least they were _games_ , and he could use the thought of crushing his opponents to distract him from his overwhelming sense of awkwardness.

Clustered in one of the offset corners of the apartment were several scattered groups of people playing party games—beer pong and spin-the-bottle being among the most popular choices. Nobody had the wits about them to bother with any sort of strategy.

Weevil wasn’t about to start drinking nor swapping spit with strangers, so he voiced his disinterest: “This is stupid.”

Rex glanced over at him. “That’s kinda the point, ain’t it?”

“Why bother playing something that’s stupid?”

“I dunno. Ya go to a party, ya do somethin’ stupid, ya make new friends. Same shit every time.” Rex prodded Weevil playfully in the gut with his elbow—a gesture that Weevil resented, but didn’t do anything to stop. “If ya don’t mind me askin’, why’dja even come to a party if ya weren’t gonna do anything fun?”

“I had my reasons,” Weevil lied.

Rex studied his expression for a beat too long, then gave up the line of questioning before it even began.

He somehow managed to flag down a group of people he seemed half-acquainted with (judging by the way he knew some of the letters their names started with) in order to start a new round. Weevil recognized a boy from his homeroom whose name he didn’t know, but the others—nothing.

How the hell did Rex know all of them? Did they go do his school? Did he go to a lot of parties? Rex had never struck Weevil as somebody who was very “cool”—why was everybody so damn _smiley_ with him?

Weevil missed the part where they were taking suggestions for what game to play. They ended up settling on a pseudo-drinking game, one that one of the girls he didn’t know was glad to explain for him:

“It’s called ‘King’s Game,’ silly! It’s really simple! Miho will tell you all the rules, okay?”

Miho looked like she had too much to drink.

“All right, so! Everybody gets these sticks, see? And they all either have a number or a crown on them! If you get a crown, then you’re the king! The king gets to order any number to do any embarrassing or gross thing he wants—but the thing is, he doesn’t know who has what number. Oh! And if the numbers refuse to do what the king orders, then they’re outta there! Bam! Boom! Gone! Easy, right?”

“It’s like truth or dare without the truth,” Rex clarified for him, as Weevil seemed to be the only one out of the ten players who didn’t have a clue what Miho was talking about.

Weevil pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I’ll pass.”

“What?” Rex’s face fell. “You can’t _pass_! That’s lame! Besides, there’s a little bit of strategy to it, ain’t there?” He needed to think about it for a few seconds, but he finally came up with something: “You can’t go ham with the orders right away, or else everybody’ll wanna kick you out. And you hafta have a good poker face, so people don’t know what number you have!”

“You just made all of that up,” Weevil said.

“Eh, yeah.” Rex held up his hands. “I mean, I’m not gonna force you to play. But,” he smirked something awful, “I gotta feeling you’ll be pretty bored, just sittin’ around watchin’.”

Miho, with her red cheeks and pale hair, picked up on their hushed conversation. “It’s fun! Miho promises! Also, we’ll set some ground rules—nothing illegal! And nothing _gross_! Like, _gross_ gross! Nothing X-rated!”

A disappointed grumble echoed throughout the group, but nobody had the courage to contradict her.

Weevil still wasn’t feeling inclined to participate. He didn’t want to risk damaging his already-sore ego. Now, _watching_ people do stupid shit while he sat far out of harm’s way—that sounded like fun.

“But that’s boring,” Rex whispered into his ear.

That probably quantified as some breed of peer pressure, Weevil reasoned. He didn’t have anything to prove to anyone in that apartment, and he _especially_ didn’t have anything to prove to Rex Raptor.

Yet.

Weevil turned to him. “You’re playing?”

“Hell yeah I am! And I’m gonna kick some major ass, too!” He rubbed the skin above his lip with his index finger. “I don’t have any pride left to lose, so I’m great at these kinda games!”

Yet he didn’t like the idea of Rex winning at something, even if that _something_ was just a stupid drinking game at a stupid party full of a bunch of stupid people.

Despite common sense gripping madly at his gut and warning him to _abort, abort, you fucking idiot_ , Weevil chuckled and said, “When you put it that way, I guess, I don’t have much to lose either.”

Even though _his_ pride was very important to him. And here he was, throwing it all away….

He hoped the melon soda wasn’t spiked.

Rex lit up like he had just drawn an ultra-rare from a new boxset, but Miho cut him off before he had the chance to say anything.

“Sweet! That’s eleven people! Let’s begin, shall we?”

And so it began.

Miho distributed one stick of wood (cheap chopsticks, Weevil presumed) to each of the players sitting in their lumpy circle. He wondered when they had been made, or if this Miho character kept them on her at all times in the vain hope of striking up a game wherever she went.

The first person to be crowned king was a tall, older-looking boy with a long face, one that Weevil could’ve sworn he had seen somewhere before.

“Wait, me? I have to come up with something? Uh….” He glanced around nervously, batting his eyelashes in big, butterfly-like beats. “L-let’s see… oh, here’s something! How’s about number, uh… six! Yeah, number six has to—,” he reached behind him, “—chug these two cans of beer, one after the other!”

“What a perfectly good waste of beer,” somebody chirped from the peanut gallery.

Weevil was number two. Thank goodness for that.

“ _Hah_!” Rex’s bleat of laughter startled Weevil out of his skin. He flashed his chopstick—sure enough, the number “six” was at the top, scrawled in red marker. “You suck at giving out prompts, Mako. Hand ’em here.”

Weevil watched, horrified, as Rex accepted the two cans without a moment’s hesitation.

He noticed Weevil’s eyes on him and smirked crookedly. “What? You gotta do what the king commands—that’s the game. ’Sides, it ain’t that bad. Done worse.” He popped the top off one of the cans.  The liquid bubbled up over onto the carpet.

“That’s illegal, you know,” Weevil said, sounding a little whinier than he had meant to.

“Sorry, what was that? Is Weevil Underwood—the kid who threw Yugi Muto’s rarest cards into the ocean and rigged Joey Wheeler’s deck—lecturing _me_ on following the rules?”

Weevil puffed out his chest. “Yeah, but I wouldn’t have gone to _juvey_ for either of those things!”

Rex either didn’t hear him or didn’t care, for he flipped the can above his mouth and drank. The group of teens cheered him on, clamoring with off-beat _chug, chug, chugs_.

Rex downed the first can, then moved onto the second—which he, again, swallowed easily. The group erupted into hollers.

Weevil was impressed, too, but for the wrong reasons: Rex must have done this before. There wasn’t any way someone inexperienced with drinking could’ve handled that much alcohol at once. How often did he drink? Was he already drunk? How was he going to get home if he was already drunk?

“See,” Rex said after swallowing a heavy gulp, “piece of cake! You couldn’t beat me in si—six—hiiiiIIIIIC—ty five million years!”

Weevil assumed that that noise, like a squawking bird having a heart attack, was a hiccup. Drinking two straight cans of beer would do that to you.

“You’re going to be _wasted_ ,” Weevil murmured.

“Don’t sweat it! I’m notta lightweight!” He slammed his fists on the floor to accent his words, but the carpet muted its effect.

“Good job, Rexy-poo!” Miho cheered, clapping her hands together. “All right, everyone—gather up the sticks! Let’s play again! And try to get someone out this time, king, jeez!”

The sticks were gathered, dispersed, and the game continued.

And continued.

Rex wasn’t called on to do anything major, nor was he crowned king. Weevil was called on once, then dared to splash a can of soda over the head of some rando who wasn’t even in the game—which he did, readily, and ducked out of the way before she could realize he was the culprit. She ended up blaming her boyfriend. The group had burst into hysterics; he probably would’ve found it funnier had he known who the two were.

In all honesty, Weevil wasn’t paying much attention to the game. He had a more interesting subject to study: Rex was fidgeting next to him like a dying specimen on a petri dish. As more people were struck out from the game, the color in his cheeks swelled from sun-kissed tan to a red as vibrant as the underbelly of a black widow. Weevil doubted he could’ve stopped staring even if he wanted to—his wiggling was _extremely_ distracting. Annoying, too, though nobody else seemed to notice if it wasn’t Rex’s turn in the game.

Rex caught his ogling and bared his teeth at him. “Quit lookin’ at me like that! What’s yer problem?”

Weevil made sure to make his stolen looks stealthier in the minutes following.

Well into the night, the group reached the point where competitors were no longer being easily eliminated. The six people remaining—Weevil, Rex, Miho, two busty girls, and one top-tier alpha male guy—were strong enough of will that eating weird concoctions or being rude to other random party-goers didn’t faze them.

“This is _lame_ ,” Miho whined into the filthy carpet. “You people are crazy! How is there supposed to be a winner if you’ll all do anything? Don’t you have any shame?”

“Don’t _you_?” Weevil muttered, but not quietly enough.

“We’re going to have to ramp this up! Make things interesting again!” She waggled a teasing finger near her temple. “I hereby decree that everything is back on the table for the king’s orders! Anything you can think of, you can order!”

A discontented murmur ricocheted through the circle.

“What do you mean by ‘anything’?” one of the other girls asked.

“Like, mean stuff! Nasty stuff! _Sexy_ stuff!”

Weevil didn’t like where Miho’s train of thought was going.

He looked over at Rex for some form of solace, but didn’t find any. Rather, his eyebrows had furrowed, and his lips were pulled back over his canines in a wily, competitive grin. Weevil recognized that look: it had been the same one Rex had worn across the field from him at the Duel Monsters Regional Championships all those years ago.

“I like the way ya think, darlin’,” he purred. His voice sounded deeper than normal—that was the alcohol’s fault, Weevil would bet. “I’m up for a challenge! Bring it on!”

Miho grinned back at him. “Yay, Rexy-poo’s on board! Miho’s so excited!” She giggled—it was probably supposed to sound cute, but it came off more like a witch’s cackle. “If you wanna bail like a bunch of chickens, now’s the time!”

The two girls and other guy shared worried glances with one another. Weevil didn’t blame them.

“This isn’t a good idea,” he said to Rex in a muted tone.

“ _Huh_? Whaddya mean?” Rex was too dumb-drunk to pick up on Weevil’s subtle cue to whisper. He whipped around to face him and scrunched his nose. “You can’t run away when things get tough! What kinda duelist backs down from a good challenge?”

Weevil spoke from around his teeth. “Dueling is different, asshole.”

“What’s the big deal? Scared of losing face? Who cares! Nobody respects ya to begin with!”

“Thanks.”

“They don’t respect me, either! We’re in the same boat!” Rex leaned in, too close for Weevil’s comfort. He scooted away. “This is your big chance, bug-boy! Think of the possibilities!”

Weevil failed to see any possibilities where continuing the game could end in something other than abject humiliation.

“It’s ’cuz you lack creativity, my dude!” Rex slung his arm around Weevil’s shoulder and pulled him—god forbid—even closer. From this near to him, Weevil could feel the heat roll off of Rex’s skin, like lava. “Heh, imagine what sorta things you could make people do! You could force them to… I dunno, prank call a teacher! Egg somebody’s car outside! Or, heh….” He glanced around shiftily—luckily, nobody was paying them any attention (Miho was too busy trying to talk the other three into playing). “You could do something _dirty_ , ya know? There’s a ton of cute girls playing—you could order one of them to take off their underwear or shirt or somethin’.”

Weevil supposed, if he were to draw the king’s stick, that the possibility of daring a girl would be more than fifty percent. They were relatively good odds, but he also didn’t want to ask something like that of a guy. People would never let that go.

“C’mon,” Rex urged, shaking Weevil’s shoulders. “If you don’t wanna do something, then you can just quit! Stick around, why don’tcha?”

Rex was a bad influence—the type of guy Saturday morning cartoons warned you to stay away from. Weevil could only imagine the horror his mother would’ve felt if she knew what kind of people he socialized with.

He adjusted his collar riding up on his neck. “Fine, fine! Jeez! Could you let go of me, already?”

Rex seemed pleased by that, and he did what he was told—all with a big, dopey smile on his face. Disgusting, Weevil thought.

Miho had managed to pressure her group of three into continuing to play. She dished back out the sticks before anybody could change their mind. Weevil got number three—AKA, not the king. Damn it.

Judging by the disappointed huff Rex blew through his nose, he didn’t get it, either.

“Hah hah _hah_! Look at this!” Miho brandished the crown-marked chopstick for all the group to see. A devious look crept up into her face. “Oh, what should Miho make her loyal subjects do? So many options, so little time!”

Weevil’s shoulders sagged. She could choose anything she wanted, he didn’t care—so long as she didn’t choose number three. Please don’t let her choose number three.

She snapped her fingers together. “All right, I got it! Let’s go for something _sexy_ , shall we? Hee-hee, how cruel does Miho want to be?”

Oh god, _please_ not number three.

“Let’s do something simple—Miho wants to see two people make out! Like, not just kiss—an _intense_ make out! With tongue! Teeth! _Passion_! First one who cuts the kiss short gets eliminated!”

Weevil felt his heart drop into his stomach. He didn’t want to _witness_ that, much less take part in it. He didn’t care how cute the girl was; the girls who would go to this sort of party weren’t his type….

“What numbers should I choose?” Miho asked herself. “Okay! Let’s choose… number four—”

Weevil breathed out a sigh of relief—

“—And number three!”

—One that he instantly sucked back in, so hard and quick that it went down the wrong pipe, and he had to hack into his fist to keep himself from dying.

Miho seemed proud of herself. “All righty! Who’re the lucky subjects?”

The group glanced nervously at one another. The guy that Weevil didn’t know revealed a number one, and thank goodness for that. The cuter of the two girls had a five, which was unfortunate, but he guessed he could handle the other one. She was okay-looking—kind of plain, with brown hair and brown eyes… nothing much to look at, but if he had to in order to win, then fine. He’d make the sacrifice.

The plain girl showed her number: a two.

Weevil blinked.

Wait. Okay, so if the two girls didn’t have the number three, and neither did the guy, and Miho herself wasn’t playing, then… the number three… belonged to…?

Fuck.

His gaze met Rex’s. He looked how Weevil felt: surprised, angry, but most of all—utterly disgusted.

“Are ya _shittin’_ me?” Rex cried, pulling at his bangs. “I would’ve been cool with anybody, but _you_? What the hell! Is this karma? It’s definitely karma, ain’t it?”

“Oh-ho-ho- _ho_! This is better than what Miho could’ve hoped for!” She craned forward, propping her chin up with a knuckle. “Well, snap to it! Time’s a’wastin’!”

Weevil’s left eye twitched. “Absolutely not! I refuse!”

“You refuse, you lose! See, Miho knew this plan was flawless—she’ll be announced victor in no time!”

“I’m fine with that! This isn’t a game—it’s… ridiculous!” Weevil crossed his arms curtly. “We both get eliminated, then! Is that what you wanted?”

Miho’s eyes flickered over to Rex. “Is Rexy-poo backing out, too?”

“Of course he is,” Weevil said. Because of _course_ he was. This was a ridiculous dare, and Rex knew that! There was no way in hell that he’d agree to it!

Yet when Weevil turned to him, he saw that Rex looked _way_ more contemplative than he should have been. He was scratching his chin, and his brows were pulled into a tangled web.

“I don’t wanna _lose_ , ya see.”

Weevil’s jaw dropped.

Miho nodded in understanding. “Ah, Miho sees! Rexy-poo wants to play, but Mr. Newbie doesn’t! So if Mr. Newbie leaves now, he forfeits—and Rexy-poo wins!”

“You’re bluffing,” Weevil growled.

“Like I said, I don’t have any pride left! So I guess it ain’t a big deal after all.” Rex sniffed and rubbed at his nose. “Though if you back out, it’ll make my life a helluva lot easier. So how’s about you surrender so we can continue with the game, eh?”

“You’re full of shit, and you know it! _”_ The more frantic Weevil got, the louder and squeakier his voice became, until he sounded similar to that of a katydid in heat. “You’re just saying that so I’ll back out and _you_ can win!”

“Am not,” Rex said. He didn’t sound very convincing.

“Liar!”

“Well, there’s only one way to prove me wrong, ain’t there?” Rex chortled, then beckoned for him with his index finger, too smarmy for his own good. “Get over here, _lovebug_.”

Weevil wrenched back in disgust. “You’re repulsive!”

“You know, it ain’t the first time I’ve heard that.”

He groaned.

He knew what game Rex was playing. It was pretty ingenious, actually—he had used Weevil’s kneejerk-abhorrent reaction in order to make himself out to be the braver of the two. He knew Rex was just as grossed out as he was (he had to be, or else he was a bigger freak than Weevil originally thought), but he was playing it up for the crowd. It was a dirty trick—not cheating (Rex rarely cheated), but _cheap_. Weevil hated losing to cheap tricks.

And, goddamn it, he wasn’t about to lose to _Rex Raptor’s_ cheap tricks.

So he plastered a sly smile over his quivering lips and did exactly what Rex wanted him to: he dipped closer to him and said, sickly sweet: “Hmm, I guess you’re right about one thing.”

He heard Rex choke on his spit. “ _Hah_?”

“You know that I always play to win,” Weevil said.

“Now _you’re_ bluffing! Ya pincer _prick_! Ya couldn’t even let me have this, couldja?!”

“Excuse me? Who’s the one who got me involved in this to begin with?”

“Well, fuck me for lookin’ out for ya, huh? Remind me to never do it again!”

“‘Look out for me’? Did I look like I needed your help?”

“As a matter of fact, ya did! You were all by yerself, weren’tcha?”

“And I was perfectly happy that way, thank you very—”

“Stop talking and start smooching!” Miho demanded, pounding her hands against the carpet. “Hop to it, or you’ll both be eliminated!”

Weevil and Rex both squeaked.

“C’mon, back out,” Rex said from under his breath.

Weevil balled his hands, as if about to punch him—which he very well might. “Why should I? You were the one who was so gung-ho about this!”

“Because if you don’t,” he said, “I’m gonna kiss you, and y’ain’t gonna like it. And if you’re gonna lose anyway, then ya might as well go out with _some_ dignity, right?”

“Why are you talking like I’ve already lost?!”

“You don’t exactly look like the guy who gets a lot of….” He thought about his next word for a second too long. “…Uh, pussy? If I had to guess? Erm, anyway—have you even kissed somebody before?”

Weevil’s heart swelled. “That’s none of your beeswax.”

“I mean, if I’m the one stealin’ away your lip virginity, ain’t it? Kinda?”

“I never said—”

“If there isn’t lip-on-lip action in the next five seconds, Miho is gonna riot!”

And that’s when Rex grabbed Weevil by both shoulders, firm enough to leave bruises he hoped nobody would ask about, and forced their lips together.

Weevil snapped his eyes shut.

The fact that it was _really unpleasant_ was the first thought to tumbleweed across Weevil’s mind. Rex’s lips were dry, like wastelands. Their noses bumped awkwardly together, and his glasses slipped off-center.

“That’s not passionate at all!” he heard Miho cry. “Put some _oomph_ into it!”

He really wished she would shut up.

Rex seemed to listen to her, as he tilted his head to get a better angle. He opened his mouth, and things suddenly got grosser. He swiped his tongue over the divot between Weevil’s lips, then craned down to give his bottom one a nip with his teeth.

“Nice, nice! But Mr. Newbie’s not into it at all, is he? Miho’s gonna have to call this one!”

Like hell she would.

Though Weevil would never have admitted it, Rex had been right in his previous observation: he hadn’t kissed somebody before. But he was a quick learner, and what he lacked in experience he could make up for with sheer _rage_.

Weevil let his mouth fall open. Rex used the opportunity to trace the outline of his lips with his tongue, then closed the gap, sucking at him, gnawing at him, swallowing him from the inside out.

He didn’t know if Rex was any good at kissing—he didn’t have anything to compare him to. There was definitely something troublesome coiling deep in his gut—but he refused to be beaten.

Rex dragged his hands up from Weevil’s shoulders to his face, leaving stripes of pain where his nails bit into his skin. One of his hands cupped his cheek, while the other drew farther back to run through the buzz of Weevil’s undercut and up into his bangs. With the leverage on the back of Weevil’s head, he was better able to deepen their kiss. Weevil let him.

He took a note from Rex’s book, parting just enough to catch Rex’s upper lip in between his teeth. He bit down, maybe too hard; Rex growled at him, and the sound sunk into his throat, through his chest, pooling in his heart and stomach. Weevil pecked him twice in fake apology before returning to what was, ostensibly, sucking face.

Somewhere in his peripheral senses, he registered the obnoxious buzzing of Miho saying something else stupid. But Rex hot around him, wet against him, sharp _in_ him, was reducing his wits to goo, and he couldn’t concentrate on anything other than victory.

Weevil reached around Rex’s back and tangled his fingers in his brown mane. And he did mean _tangled_ —the state of Rex’s hair was so atrociously knotty, he couldn’t even return the favor of “running his fingers” through it.

So instead, he caught a fistful of hair and _yanked_ , hard enough to make Rex’s head roll back and expose his neck.

And Rex _moaned_.

It was a raw, guttural sound—something animalistic and ancient, primal and prehistoric—and Weevil shivered as he felt it sighed into his mouth. God, was Rex pathetic.

Just as Weevil was about to try another dirty trick, he felt Rex stiffen beneath his touch, and—before he knew what was happening—he was shoved back onto the carpet. His head hit the floor with an audible _thunk_.

“Oww—what the _fuck_! What the hell was that for?!” He pried open his eyes, glaring daggers at the ceiling above him.

Rex had gotten to his feet. Weevil had trouble pinpointing the nature of the expression on his face: his blush was even darker than before, though it was hard to tell with his hands covering the majority of his face.

“Whoa! That was a turnabout for the record books! Rexy-poo totally chickened out!” Without Rex in his space, Weevil was able to hear Miho’s chipper voice again. “You won, Mr. Newbie! Miho is super impressed!”

“I… won?”

Rex had pushed him away. That meant he had been the first to back off—so… Weevil _had_ won, hadn’t he?

He laughed, tone cold. “Heh, I _won_.” He cocked an eyebrow. “How’s it feel, Rex Raptor? To get beaten by me at your own stupid game?”

He didn’t get the chance to hear Rex’s response, for before shooting back with something snarky, Rex turned sharp on his heels and _ran_. Weevil had never seen him (or anyone, for that matter) move that fast.

And then he was gone.

“Whoa, he left,” Miho said, blinking. “Aww. He could’ve at least stayed to watch the rest of the game! Too embarrassed about losing, maybe.”

The one guy who was still a competitor shifted himself so he could whisper something into Miho’s ear. Weevil couldn’t hear what he said, but he watched as Miho’s eyes blew wide.

“Wait, seriously? Eww! Miho didn’t notice! _Gross_! Why were you even _looking_ there, you pervert?!”

If Weevil sat up straight, he could follow Rex’s path: he had charged straight into a band of people, trying to force his way through them, before giving up and doubling back around. He tried and failed at this several more times, before realization sprouted painfully on his face.

“Yeah, bathroom’s the other way, genius,” Weevil heard the other guy say, followed by more “ _eww eww ewwwwws_ ” courtesy of Miho.

By “other way,” apparently the guy meant “past the King’s Game group,” for Rex had to turn back towards them. He hustled as fast as was possible in their cramped environment, though there wasn’t enough room to maneuver around the group entirely. He avoided eye contact with Weevil very, very obviously.

“He’s gonna turn tail and run home after this,” the guy said.

“He better! He’s gross!”

There was no way Rex couldn’t have heard that. Weevil almost felt bad for him. Keyword: almost.

“Rex.”

When he heard his name, Rex froze mid-stride. He quickly turned his back on the group—or, more specifically, on Weevil.

“ _What_?” he said, voice breaking.

Weevil pushed his glasses back into their proper position on his nose. “You’re still texting me tomorrow, right?”

At that point, he tuned the rest of the group out. He wasn’t interested in their game anymore—in his book, he had already won. And besides, he had something better to play.

Rex craned his head over his shoulder to give Weevil a wide-eyed gape. His cheeks and lips were flushed the same shade of cherry red. “ _Huh_?”

“I’ll be expecting something. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll assume you wimped out.” He smirked, and he was glad Rex had mustered the courage to see it. “You can bounce back after a loss, right?”

Rex’s lips pursed into a strange, strained shape, before he hurried off in the direction of the bathroom.

The next day, Weevil received two text messages from the same unknown number—one that asked if he was free, and another that contained way too many dinosaur emojis.

 

**2.**

 

They met more often after that.

They always wound up playing games, either of the card, video, or mind variety. Weevil won every time, but Rex never got discouraged: “I’ll beat yer ass next time, I swear! Better watch out, ya six-legged shitdick!”

Hanging out with him was exhausting. Weevil wasn’t used to spending prolonged time with people (even when he used to frequent tournaments), and Rex Raptor was obnoxious a candidate as one could be. Yet Weevil found himself crawling back to his side—week in, week out—even despite having to take an hour-long train ride to meet Rex halfway in between the two of their homes.

“It’s annoying,” Weevil explained, arms crossed over his ladybug-printed tank top. “I hate public transit. It attracts the most intolerable of people.”

Rex was only half-listening to his patter: he was preoccupied with playing the arcade game in front of him. The two had discovered a kitschy arcade in the town they met up in that specialized in retro gaming cabinets from around the world. It had been quite the find—Weevil was surprised he didn’t hear more people talk about it.

The cabinet Rex was currently decimating was an American children’s game, where the player was tasked with stepping on buttons when they lit up, like an inverted version of whack-a-mole. The entire game was themed after squashing spiders, which Rex had chosen solely because he knew it would bug Weevil.

“Intolerable people?” Rex asked, not taking his eyes off of the blinking lights below him. “Like you?”

“Like _you_.”

Rex stomped on the buttons with far too much ferocity. The game was meant for kids, not almost fully-grown teenagers; Weevil wouldn’t be surprised if he ended up busting the machine.

“Ya think everyone’s intolerable,” he said in between stomps.

“That’s because they are.”

“Ehh, maybe. You take the cake though, ha!”

Weevil contemplated shoving Rex off of the game mat and screwing up his combo—but he didn’t act fast enough, and Rex missed one of the buttons on his own. The game made a defamatory, angry noise, before all of the lights shut off in defeat.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Rex cursed, loud enough for every child and mother in a sixty-foot radius to hear.

Weevil chuckled. “Hyo-hyo, that’s called karma.”

“Shut up.” Rex hopped off of the machine with a puff. “It was a dumb game, anyway. Liked the look, though—it’s hella cathartic to stomp some stupid spiders.”

“Heh.” Two could play at that game. “If I remember correctly, there was a cabinet near the front that involved milling down waves of dinosaurs with a machine gun. I think I’ll go play that next.”

Rex’s jaw unhinged in horror. “That’s awful! Why wouldja shoot dinosaurs? They’re too cool for that!”

“Why would you want to squash spiders?” Weevil asked, his voice squeaking against his will. He coughed and calmed himself before speaking again: “It was _Jurassic Park_ themed. I thought you liked that movie.”

“I do! But if you think _Jurassic Park_ is all about shooting dinosaurs, you’re an idiot. It’s a movie about the dangers of science! About life revolting against scientists because they thought they could play God! It’s about human hubris!”

Weevil stared at him. “That’s pretty profound. For you, I mean.”

“And then a shit-ton of people get eaten! I want a game where ya play as the dinos and eat all of the dumbass scientists! I’d play the shit outta that!”

He had spoken too soon.

“You have the mental capacity of a third grader,” Weevil muttered, feeling a crease form along his brow.

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with liking dinos! It’s bugs that’re creepy!” Rex inspected the area of the arcade around him—trying to find a new game, Weevil guessed—then stomped off in a random direction. Weevil tagged along behind him.

“Bugs are _brilliant_ ,” he said. “They’ve been on Earth for over four-hundred-million years, and they’re the only reason we’re alive. What would you do without bees, you fossil fuckhead?”

“I’d eat meat,” Rex said. “Life finds a way.”

“You’re hopeless.”

Rex wandered over to a row of arcade cabinets specifically reserved for fighting games. He examined them all individually, then doubled back around to stop at one that caught his eye. He looked to Weevil and asked, “Wanna play?”

Weevil recognized the franchise—a crossover brawl between an American comic corporation and a Japanese gaming company—but he had never had the experience of playing it.

“Sure,” he said anyway, because he’d never waste an opportunity to kick Rex’s ass.

Rex smiled, then knelt down to deposit a few coins into the machine. The console ringed in recognition.

“Even if dinos aren’t around anymore, they’re still fun to study,” he said, continuing their previous conversation. “That’s what I’m gonna go to school for!”

“Paleontology?” Rex didn’t strike him as the academic type.

His excitement deflated. “Why’dja say it like that, huh?”

Saying _an idiot like you isn’t going to get anywhere in a science_ was too harsh to lead with, even for Weevil. He had to build up to it, at least.

“Entrance exams are coming up soon,” he said. “It’s going to be hard to get into any good universities, you know—especially ones that have a focus on… erm, paleontology.”

“Eh, I’ll scrape by. I always do!” Rex got back to his feet, then jammed a button on the console to bring them to the character select screen. “Most universities have a paleontology program, don’t they? Yeah, it’ll be fine. How about you?”

The question was tacked on at the last second; Weevil almost didn’t catch it. “Huh? What about me?”

Rex selected his team of three characters, all of whom were women with gigantic boobs. Weevil wondered if Rex had played before, or if he had chosen them based on “aesthetics” alone.

“What’re yer college plans?”

“Oh.” Weevil had been forced to carefully map out the entirety of his college career, thanks to his doting parents. “I’m aiming for the top schools—I have my eye on Tōkyō University. They have a world-recognized entomology program.”

Rex looked at him.

“The study of bugs, dingus.”

“Bugs?! Yeesh! Havin’ to work with creepy crawlies every day—sounds disgustin’!” Rex shivered overdramatically. “Guess it fits ya, though. Like dinos fit me!”

Weevil picked three American characters—the leading one being themed around spiders, obviously—and after picking the stage, the fight began. Rex wasn’t taking the game very seriously: he apparently only knew one combo, which he proceeded to do nothing but spam the shit out of.

“Tōkyō University, huh,” Rex said, possibly in an attempt to distract him.

“Mmn,” Weevil grunted. He was trying his best to break through Rex’s wall of projectiles—jeez, did he have to choose the spammiest character?

“Do ya know if they have a paleontology program over there?”

“ _Huh_?”

Weevil lost concentration, causing his spider-boy to be whipped across the screen by Rex’s big-titted harpy.

“A paleontology program! Maybe I’ll try applying there! I mean, I wanna be the best dino expert out there—Tōkyō University seems like as good a place as any.”

Weevil couldn’t tell if he was serious or not. He _sounded_ serious, but the image of Rex Raptor going to an accredited university didn’t sit right in his mind. Rex complained about school all of the time—why was he even toying with the idea of applying to a good university?

“It’s hard to get in,” Weevil said with a tight-lipped frown. “Your tiny lizard brain couldn’t handle it.”

“What!” Rex tore his gaze away from the game to give him a glare. “Ya sayin’ I’m dumb?”

Weevil used the distraction to lock Rex’s character into a crazy combo. He heard Rex growl in complaint.

“Definitely not,” Weevil taunted.

Rex snorted at him. “Heh! I could get into any university I wanted! My grades ain’t all too shabby, and I’m a pretty good test taker! You just watch!”

“Oh, I’m ecstatic.” Ecstatic to see him fail, anyway.

“It’ll be awesome, I swear to ya!” He was pressing every button on the controller, trying to weasel his way out of Weevil’s combo—to no avail. He didn’t seem too bothered by it, though. “And, hey—wouldn’t it be cool to go to the same college?”

“I see you enough as it is.”

“We wouldn’t have to take a train to the goddamn boonies in order to see each other! We could meet up whenever we wanted!” The more he thought about it, the more excited—and, tangentially, the more deafening—his voice became. “Maybe we could be roommates!”

“ _Urk_ —!”

Weevil missed a button, dropping his combo. Rex was quick to break out of it and punish Weevil into the next century.

“Ya always sound so disappointed when I bring up somethin’ cool,” Rex said, more muted than he had been before. “You’re kinda a buzzkill, buzz-boy.”

Weevil spared a glance away from the screen to look Rex in the face. He must’ve sensed it, for he mirrored the movement and offered Weevil an earnest smile. Like, _genuinely_ earnest.

Goddamn it, there hadn’t been a _fleck_ of irony in that suggestion. He didn’t know why he would think otherwise—Rex was a very blunt person.

He stewed on the notion: Rex would actually consider living with him. In fact, he seemed _pretty damn_ _enthusiastic_ about the idea. Why, he wondered? They hadn’t known each other that long.

Actually, that was a lie—they had known each other for a painfully long time, but had fallen out of touch until late. That was Weevil’s own fault, he knew; but the way that Rex was talking—as if they had never parted ways—freaked him out a little. He was way too open.

“Like I would ever consider living with _you_ ,” Weevil spat, hoping that the venomous words, spoken on a trigger, would mask the inner tumult of anxiety that Rex had just unleashed inside of him.

“Why not? We get along pretty well, don’t we?” Rex returned to the game. “We hang around with each other for a freakishly long time almost every day. I dunno about you, but I don’t do that with anyone else. Can’t say why—you’re not very likable.”

“Because you’re an idiot, that’s why!”

“Maybe. And like, I know that’cha ain’t likable, but’cha kinda are? You’re unlikable in a likable sorta way, ya know? If I’m makin’ sense.” He shrugged. “But anyway, it would be nice to have a friend to hang out with during college. And I like ya enough to consider ya a friend.”

 _Friend_ was a strong word, and not one Weevil would use to describe his relationship with Rex Raptor. _Rival_ would be better. _A constant pain in his ass_ would be best. He didn’t like the guy—he had gone out of his way to avoid seeing him for _years_.

Yet, when presented with the opportunity to be by his side again, Weevil had _leapt_ for it, like an ant colony on a dropped snack.

He felt a bead of sweat roll down the back of his neck: this entire conversation was heading down an extremely dangerous path, and it was making him squirm. Even if, somewhere deep down, he liked Rex beyond tolerance (which he doubted—“like,” too, was a strong word), he didn’t want to let him know it. Rex didn’t need the ego boost.

“I don’t see why you’re fantasizing about something that will never happen,” Weevil said, caustic.

“It could happen! You don’t know!”

Weevil managed to chip away the last bit of Rex’s health. He heard him mutter a curse, before the game splashed into the next round. Best two out of three, it appeared.

“And if it _did_ happen,” Rex continued with renewed confidence, “wouldja be up for it?”

Weevil bit his lip hard enough to taste blood. “Like I already said, I would never consider living with you.”

“You’d rather be stuck with some rando normie? I already know all of yer stupid quirks. Ya wanna go through all that effort again?”

That was true. Rex was the only person who had stuck by Weevil after becoming acquainted with his personality. Living with somebody who hated him (and whom he most likely hated in return) sounded draining. Rex drained him, too, but in a different kind of way: he was never angry afterwards. Annoyed, maybe, but not _angry_.

At least, not anymore.

“I suppose it would be less of a hassle,” Weevil muttered, pushing up his glasses.

“Really?!” Rex turned to grin at him, completely losing concentration of the game. Weevil used the opportunity to punish him, but he could feel the smile’s radiance burning a hole in the corner of his retinas.

“Logistically speaking, I mean,” he said in an attempt to quell Rex’s enthusiasm. “You’re right—where else am I going to find someone stupid enough to be my roommate? I already have the dumbest bonehead in Japan right here.”

Rex chose to ignore Weevil’s carefully-crafted insults in favor of more shouting. “Hell yeah! Sounds like a plan! Think of all the stupid shit we could get up to—we could be the talk of the town again! Maybe I’ll pick Duel Monsters back up! We could do some serious conspirin’, lemme tell ya!”

He was so enthralled by the world of his riveting imagination, he didn’t realize that Weevil had worked up enough meter to perform his ultimate finisher, which decimated Rex’s trio of busty wenches in a single frame. Even when the screen announced Weevil’s victory, Rex kept on rambling. (The very least he could do was recognize his loss, jeez—it wasn’t fun to win if the loser didn’t cry about it.)

“Okay, it’s time to get serious! I’m gonna make it my goal to get into Tōkyō U, just like you!” Rex clapped and rubbed his hands together, as if concocting a particularly mischievous scheme.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Weevil grumbled. “You lost, by the way.”

“Say, Beetlejuice—will you help me study?”

“Wha—absolutely _not_! I’m not your babysitter!”

“Hah? But I thought’cha said ya wanted to live together! We can’t live together unless I do well on my entrance exams, and I wanna be as prepared as possible!”

“Okay, first of all—those words never came out of my mouth. Secondly, learn to study by yourself! You’re not going to do well at a top-grade university if you don’t learn how to study!”

“Aww, _please_?” Rex collapsed onto the controllers of the game cabinet, bones jellifying. With his long hair corkscrewing in every which way down his back, he looked like he was melting into a furry puddle.

Weevil huffed and straightened his clothes, despite nothing needing to be straightened. “It’ll do more harm than good,” he said, more to himself than Rex. “It’d be way too easy to get distracted.” They’d end up devolving into another argument about Mothra versus Godzilla, the current Duel Link meta, or—more than likely—just wind up playing another game. “If you want a tutor, find somebody else.”

“But it’s not the same!” He pressed his head harder against the cabinet. Weevil could barely make out his voice. “Tutors cost money….”

“So does tuition. And rent.”

“But I wanna study with you!”

For a split second, the word that popped into his head to describe Rex’s moping was, embarrassingly, _endearing_. Maybe even _cute_ , if he was being generous.

But Weevil promptly corrected himself—Rex wasn’t _cute_ , he was annoying. Stupid. A pain in the fucking ass.

Maybe Weevil was all of those things too, and that’s why they got along so well. He was definitely stupid, at least. He wouldn’t have kept hanging out with Rex if he wasn’t.

He gritted his teeth. “You’re a fucking hassle.”

Rex lifted his head. Weevil could see that same sunbeam smile from beneath all of those greasy snarls, shining brighter than the meteor that had murdered the dinosaurs he loved so much.

And, if he hadn’t been stupid, he might not have found that smile so hard to resist.

 

**3.**

 

Rex lived alone in a cramped, one-room apartment: thirty percent living room, ten percent kitchen, and the rest a goddamn junkyard. His floor was littered with books, board games, children’s toys, wrinkled t-shirts, dirty underwear, questionable magazines, and enough fast food wrappers and crumbs to have fed a small country. Weevil had been convinced that he didn’t even have a bathroom, up until Rex moved five plastic boxes of trading cards and a cardboard cut-out standee of King Ghidorah out of the way to reveal another door.

The first time Weevil had visited, he had been so appalled by its state that he had nearly fainted on the spot. The second time he visited, he had taken it upon himself to try to organize Rex’s scattered garbage into something resembling order. The fourth or fifth time he visited, it finally dawned on him to ask why the hell Rex was living by himself.

“Oh, y’know, it’s complicated,” he had answered with a vague wave of his hand, and that had been the end of that.

On this trillionth-odd visit of his, Weevil had successfully managed to reorganize Rex’s belongings into neat piles and depose of all of the trash. It was far from perfect, but at least he could walk around without fear of tripping and impaling himself on a dusty Duel Disk.

“You do know that I’m not your maid,” Weevil called over the running water from the faucet. At first, he had been pleasantly surprised that Rex owned real silverware, but the joy had swiftly diminished once he realized that the dishes had only been cleaned once, maybe twice. It was now another chore he had taken upon himself. Not because he cared about Rex’s well-being, of course not—what a ludicrous suggestion—but because he wasn’t about to spend his free time in a pigsty.

Rex was sprawled over his singular couch, lounging smack in the middle of the room. _Jurassic Park_ piped through the television in front of him in grainy, well-used video-cassette quality. It was one of the only six movies Rex owned that wasn’t porn: the other five, which Weevil had very quickly become acquainted with, were _Godzilla, Godzilla vs. Space Godzilla_ , _Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah_ , _Mothra vs. Godzilla_ (which Weevil vastly preferred over the others), and a really shitty buddy-cop movie featuring a talking dinosaur detective teaming up with a subpar American comedian.

He wasn’t paying much attention to the movie, though; rather, he was fiddling with his phone, eyebrows knitted in concentration.

“Harpie Ladies can kiss my ass,” he griped.

“Hey. Are you even listening to me?”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah.” He didn’t take his eyes off his phone. “Thanks for cleaning up, Weeves.”

“Your gratitude knows no bounds,” Weevil mumbled, then went back to scrubbing the remnants of chow mein from the plates.

 School had ended a few weeks ago, and college loomed ahead like an open Venus fly trap. Entrance exams had come and gone, as had most major acceptance letters. Weevil had received his from Tōkyō University the day before, and it had been met with little fanfare from his family. It was what they had expected, after all.

He hadn’t brought it up to Rex yet. He wasn’t sure how to mention it: it _was_ kind of a big deal. If Rex had gotten in, too, then that would have solidified their roommate status. The thought was still mildly horrifying.

After Weevil finished the dishes and set them to dry, he wiped his glasses off with the fabric of his beetle-printed t-shirt and skulked towards the couch. Rex glanced up at him, uninterested, then returned to tapping at his screen.

“I hear they’re nerfing Switcheroo soon,” he said.

“Getting you into that was a mistake,” said Weevil. “Now move. I want to sit down.”

Rex ignored him.

“I said _move_ , you Triassic tit.”

“That’s a new one,” Rex observed. “Learned more eras recently?”

Weevil crossed his arms and tapped his foot. He could hear the sound of triumphant brass from _Jurassic Park_ ’s score on the TV—Rex played the movie so often, Weevil knew exactly what scene it was without even having to look. It was near the beginning when the characters first arrived at the park, because fuck him for thinking he’d be able to get out of it early.

“I’m not in the mood for games,” Weevil said.

“Neither am I—the Duel Link is such bullshit! I can’t even get outta gold rank!” He threw his head back and groaned. Weevil noticed the gentle swish of his hair; he had his beanie off for once, and his hair was pulled back into a high ponytail to get it off his neck. Weevil didn’t blame him—the apartment didn’t have air conditioning, and the fans in each corner of the room didn’t keep it from sweltering.

“You have five seconds,” he said, tearing his eyes away from the sight.

“And what’re ya gonna do, huh? It’s my house, moron.”

“Five. Four.”

“You’re _countin_ ’? Hah, don’t bother! I’m comfy, and I ain’t movin’. You can sit onna chair or somethin’.”

The one chair that Rex owned was covered in splinters and missing a leg, and had thusly been dubbed the Death Chair. Weevil didn’t want to take his chances with the Death Chair.

“Fine,” Weevil said with a shrug. “You leave me no choice.”

He sauntered around the edge of the couch, blocking the view of the TV (“Hey! Whaddya think you’re doin’?”), before he sat, hard, right on Rex’s stomach. He earned himself a pained “oouurgh.”

Weevil leaned back, getting himself as comfortable as possible. He focused on the movie: the main characters’ Jeep was just about to make its first encounter with a lame CGI brachiosaur. KaibaCorp holograms looked more realistic.

He felt Rex squirm beneath him. He glanced down: Rex had put his phone away, now intently absorbed in the film. He’d been waiting for the dinosaurs to show up, apparently.

“Still comfy?” Weevil asked with a smirk.

“Are _you_?”

Not really. Rex’s stomach wasn’t as cozy as a cushion would’ve been. And, beyond that—he was tired from cleaning all of their goddamn dishes (by himself). He deserved to relax, didn’t he?

So he slunk down and melted into the couch—or, rather, into Rex himself. He turned so he was on his stomach, resting his head on Rex’s chest. Their legs twined together.

Rex didn’t say anything, seemingly too focused on the dinosaurs. He was going to have to acknowledge Weevil eventually, though—his blanketing body-heat wouldn’t be making the already-scorching temperature any more bearable for him.

Yet Rex stayed silent. And, as Weevil’s irritation waned, he found himself sinking deeper into that same heat. Rex was a better pillow than he anticipated. Boobs would’ve been more pleasant to lay on in the chesticle region, Weevil presumed, but the thought was fleeting. Ish.

 _Actually, this is pretty fucking weird_ , marveled his common sense. He told himself that this was him trying to assert dominance—that this was what happened when you didn’t do what Weevil Underwood told you—but… still. It was _weird_ , wasn’t it?

At some point, Rex had draped his arms around him, one hand rubbing circles into the small of his back and the other petting his hair. Weevil had shaved his undercut down to a full buzz cut in preparation for college. Rex had been torn on what to think: “ _I mean, uh, it looks good on ya! It does! But it’s so… different_!” He had been as fascinated with its buzzed texture then as he was now: his fingers ghosted over the strands, sending tingles knitting through Weevil’s spine.

It was definitely weird. It would be even weirder having whatever _this_ was greet him when he got home. He supposed it would have been more convenient (though Weevil would have to make sure to stock their apartment with stable furniture—they could burn the Death Chair an effigy).

 But he definitely wasn’t _excited_ about the prospect. He had done a little research into dorms and apartments near Tōkyō University, sure, but only because they would need to put an offer down soon. It was _not_ because he wanted _this_ to be permanent, and it was definitely— _absolutely_ —not because he was looking forward to it.

“I got my acceptance letter,” Weevil blurted.

Well, there went “subtly leading up to it.” He had gotten so wrapped up in himself, he had spilled his thoughts by accident.

He lifted his head to gauge Rex’s reaction—or, apparently, his lack thereof. His gaze was soft, trained on his own nails grazing over Weevil’s hair. Weevil questioned whether he had even been watching the movie.

“Hmm?” he said, preoccupied.

“I got my acceptance letter. You know, to Tōkyō University.”

Rex’s strokes paused. His lips pulled back into a frontage of a smile, uncanny at the gums.

“Ya got in?” His voice was scratchy, too—he sounded like he had before he had hit puberty. “Jeez, why didn’t ya say somethin’ earlier? That’s great news! Congrats!” He gave him a little shake. “If I had known, I woulda bought’cha dinner! Hell, maybe I even woulda cleaned! Hah-hah, that’s _great_!”

 Rex’s shaking knocked Weevil’s glasses from his face, and he grappled for them before they could get crushed between the two of them. “Hey—quit it, would you?”

“How could I quit? We should celebrate! C’mon, we should go out! I’ll pay! What time is it, anyway?”

“We’re _not_ going out,” Weevil said, then winced at his tone. “I mean, we’re not—we’re—it’s too late to go anywhere. Besides, it’s not that big a deal. I mean, didn’t you…?”

He left his sentence unfinished, hoping Rex would catch onto the unvoiced question. Instead, Rex stared at him, dopey-faced, for a good handful of seconds before realization visibly clicked.

“Nah, I didn’t get in,” he said, feigning indifference. “I applied to a lot of places, though, and a few of them accepted me! So I’m not in a rut, just no Tōkyō U.” He scratched the back of his head. “Looks like ya beat me, I guess. Man, that’s kinda annoyin’… I mean, I’m happy for ya! It’s just, uh, kinda a bummer. Ya get me, right?”

Weevil stared at him.

“I mean, uh, it’s not a bummer! Auuugh, that came out wrong…!” He flapped his arms, trying to better articulate himself with gesture. It made him resemble a ladybug with its wings torn off. “I’m happy for ya, I really am! Ignore what I said before! I’m _happy_!”

He didn’t sound happy. And, for some reason, Weevil didn’t feel all that happy, either.

“What do you _mean_ you didn’t get in?” he asked, voice shrill. “I made you study your ass off!”

“I-I dunno! Don’t ask me that! I thought I did pretty well on my exams, but I guess… not well enough?”

Rex hadn’t told Weevil his scores when he had first received them. Maybe he had failed and was too ashamed to admit it. Maybe he didn’t want Weevil to know that he had been beaten again.

Weevil’s fingernails bit into Rex’s chest, even through the fabric of his cotton shirt. “What the hell, Rex? I thought you—we were—how—ugh!” His frustration spoke for him: “How did you manage to convince me you were taking this seriously, you _retard_?”

“ _What_?”

Shit.

His words hadn’t sounded so scathing in his mind.

Weevil was suddenly keenly aware of how _close_ they were to one another. What had been comfortable before was now burningly awkward, made doubly so by the hostile glower Rex was now sporting. Weevil could feel tension spark through Rex’s muscles, as if he were getting ready to get up or shove him off.

He scooted back, trying to distance himself—but he was, for all intents and purposes, still sitting on him. “I mean, uh, err….” He struggled for the right phrasing. “You don’t seem that torn up about it.”

“I don’t, do I?” Rex sat up so quickly, it knocked Weevil off-balance; he fell forward, nose and glasses colliding with Rex’s chest in a starburst of pain. “Whaddya want me to do, cry about it? That would stroke your fatass ego, huh? To know that you beat me _that_ badly?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Weevil said, rubbing at his nose.

“Sure as fuck sounded like it!”

“I just thought you’d be… I don’t know, disappointed! At least a little!”

“Why? Because ya beat me? Do you think I care that much about how I stack up to _you_?”

“That has nothing to do with it! I….” Weevil lurched over his words. “I thought we were going to be roommates! Wasn’t that the plan?” He didn’t like how pathetic he sounded, so he amended: “I don’t like it when things deviate from the plan!”

Rex’s bared scowl slowly slipped into a confused, muddy frown. “Plan?”

“Why’d you say it like that? Did you _forget_? Why did you think I was helping you study, dipshit?”

Rex thought about that for a solid minute. His brows unscrewed, and the tautness pulling beneath his skin slackened. Weevil used the moment to shuffle backwards to sit kneeled in-between his legs, rather than remain on top of him.

“I guess we won’t be doin’ that anymore,” Rex said. “The universities I got into ain’t anywhere near Tōkyō. There was one near Osaka, one in Kyūshū….”

“Kyūshū?” Weevil’s heart twisted into an unfamiliar shape. “What the hell! There aren’t any trains that go to _Kyūshū_!”

“I didn’t say that’s what I decided!”

“You haven’t decided yet? Summer’s almost over!”

Rex flared his nostrils. “Lay off me, wouldja? I’ll figure it out!” He paused for another moment, then scratched at his cheek. “Hmm. I guess I oughta stick close by. Otherwise, ya’d miss me, wouldn’t ya?”

“ _Excuse_ me?” Weevil puffed out his cheeks. “I don’t think so! If you want to go to Kyūshū, fine! I don’t give a crap! I was just concerned that _you’d_ miss _me_!”

“You already revealed your hand, bug-brain.” And then Rex’s smile returned, as splendid and sunny as it normally was (thank god for that), and he leaned forward to poke at Weevil’s face. “You’d miss me! I guess you do care, even if it’s in yer own fucked-up little way, huh?”

Weevil wrenched away from his touch, but Rex pursued.

“Get off of me.”

“It’s true, ain’t it?” Rex stretched both of Weevil’s cheeks, then smooshed them back together. “Aww, you’re cute! Lookit that, Weevil Underwood being cute! Never thought I’d see the day!”

“I said, get _off_ of me!”

Even so, Weevil felt relieved. What could’ve evolved into a knock-down-drag-out fight had been resolved in only a few beats.

He was still bitter: Rex wasn’t acting like he had taken the application process seriously. But, then again, maybe he had—Rex and Weevil were different people, with different challenges and different methods of how to solve them. He had tried in his own way, and he had failed in his own way.

That made it sound like Weevil was disappointed. He wasn’t disappointed. He knew that it was a long shot to begin with.

Once he was satisfied with his squishing, Rex shifted to bury his face into Weevil’s shoulder. Handsy, as per usual—though after that spat, he didn’t have the heart to push him away.

“So we’re not gonna celebrate?” he asked, words muffled.

“Not tonight,” Weevil said. “It’s late.”

“You leavin’?”

He glanced at the clock on the floor, near the base of the television. “Do you want me to?”

Rex pushed his face harder against Weevil’s shoulder. “Dunno.”

Weevil suspected that the gesture was supposed to be apologetic. Affectionate, even. Rex wasn’t the best with words—perhaps this was compensation.

 _Jurassic Park_ trotted away on the screen, the gritty picture flickering and rolling with each pull of the loved tape. Weevil focused on the subtitles.

“ _If there’s one thing the history of evolution has taught us, it’s that life will not be contained._ ”

“Dunno,” Rex kept mumbling. “Dunno, dunno, dunno….”

“ _Life breaks free. Expands to new places… and it crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously_ ….”

“But there it is _._ ”

“ _There it is_.”

He stayed the night.

 

**4.**

 

“Okay,” Weevil said, drawing the next flashcard from the lopsided pile, “give me the name, the type, and where it’s formed.”

Rex stared at the card, eyebrows drawing tight in concentration. Weevil could see him gnaw at the soft flesh of his inner cheek; he was a visual thinker, highly empathetic, with a _terrible_ poker face.

He hunched forward. “Uh. It looks coarse?”

Weevil nodded his head.

“Coarse… and I think it’s metamorphic, too, so… uh. Is it… schist?”

“Gneiss.”

“Nice?” Rex’s eyes lit up. “I was right?!”

God, how Weevil hated being the buzzkill. “Ah, no—not nice, _gneiss_. It’s not schist: remember, schist is the flaky one. The one with cleavage.”

“Uhhh-huh-huh-huh,” Rex grinned, “you said _cleavage_.”

Weevil visibly deflated. “For the love of god, you zenithal zoophile—you can’t honestly think it’s funny _every_ time you hear it.”

“It’s not,” Rex said, then raised his head so his eyes gleamed in the fluorescent light. “Seeing your reaction every time is funny, though.”

Studying with Rex was a pain in Weevil’s goddamn ass. He didn’t know why he was bothering to help him out, either: their universities had entirely different curriculums, and Weevil wasn’t even taking geology. Yet every time they met up, Rex pleaded for Weevil’s help—and if he didn’t accept, then he would mope, and the last thing he needed was a mopey Rex.

Instead of meeting halfway like they had in high school, the two now visited one another’s hometowns. They were an hour or two away by train—nothing that Weevil wasn’t used to, and nothing that Rex seemed to mind. Whenever Weevil visited Rex, he’d usually end up staying the night, as he continued to live alone; when the situation was reversed, though, they barely hung out in Weevil’s apartment. Rex didn’t like Weevil’s roommate for reasons he wasn’t keen on admitting, and the only thing worse than a mopey Rex was a passive-aggressively pouty Rex. Thus, they spent their time in the twenty-four-hour campus library.

“You know,” Weevil said, putting the gneiss flashcard on the bottom of the pile, “if you’re not understanding this, it’s not going to be easy moving forward. Paleontology is all about geology. You have to know what type of rock a dinosaur bone is buried in to know what type of dinosaur it is, what the landscape was like when it died, how old it is—”

“I _know_ ,” Rex whined. “I’ll get it eventually! I will! I gotta!” He clenched his hands into fists and pounded them on the wooden table. “Gimme another card!”

They had been through the pile of hundred-odd flashcards about three times already. Rex had made progress, but not enough—it was already halfway through the semester, and he was still having trouble telling the difference between igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic. Weevil had absorbed so much information about goddamn _rocks_ , he was pretty sure he knew Rex’s field better than he did. He would have suggested cheating, if he hadn’t already known how Rex would react: “I ain’t sinkin’ to yer level, scumbag! I have honor, unlike you!”

Weevil hummed. “We’ve already done a lot of work tonight. Let’s call it quits.”

“Quits? No way! I gotta get this eventually!” He pounded a rhythm on the table. “Gimme another card! A-no-ther-card—!”

Weevil’s eyes narrowed. “Whining doesn’t make me want to help you, douchebag.”

“Ugh, fine! Just one more, then we can stop!”

That was as good a deal as he was going to get. Weevil’s fingers hesitated over the pile of flashcards—this was granite, and Rex _had_ to know that—then drew.

“Name, type, where it’s formed,” he prompted.

Rex sat up straight and peered hard at the card, as if he had trouble reading it. Weevil wondered if he should’ve been wearing glasses. Every time he had tried on Weevil’s, though, he quoted the infamous, “Holy shit, you’re so blind, bug-boy!” It was probably another one of his visual-thinking traits.

Weevil watched as Rex’s focus intensified, his eyes flicking over every pixel of the printed image—before his gaze wandered off towards the space beyond Weevil’s head.

“ _Rex_ ,” Weevil snapped on cue, with his fingers and voice alike.

His attention whipped back to the flashcard. He grumbled something lame under his breath—some form of “I’m not a dog, buttmunch”—but, like a moth drawn to a flame, his gaze meandered back to the interesting _whatever_ going on behind Weevil.

“What is it _now_ ,” Weevil said to himself, then spun around in his chair to see what Rex was so fascinated by.

He didn’t notice anything unusual at first—there weren’t a lot of people in the library this time of night (much less on a Friday), so there wasn’t much to gawk at. But, as he scanned over the tables that had people at them, something caught his eye: two things, actually. Two pairs of things. Four things.

Four really fucking big tits.

Not on the same chick, obviously—now _that_ would’ve gotten the heads rolling—but two pairs of massive tits on two different girls. _Massive_ tits. Mai-Valentine-on-estrogen-and-growth-hormones levels of massive. Both girls had blonde hair and bright blue eyes, with matching designs painted on their fingernails. Foreigners, he assumed, and maybe sisters.

Weevil turned back to Rex. His eyes had glazed over. Might as well have been drooling.

Weevil located the nearest heavy object—that being Rex’s chip-dusted-and-cola-stained geology textbook—picked it up, and dropped it onto the desk with a sound loud enough to wake the sleepiest of dragons.

Rex shot out of his daze in an instant. “Hey! What was that for?!” He pulled his textbook back towards him. “Don’t go abusin’ my stuff like that, ya dickweed!”

“Quit looking at them,” Weevil said stonily, then pushed the flashcard closer to Rex’s face. “Name, type, where it’s formed.”

“But I mean, did you see them? Holy _shit_ , dude.” Rex lowered his voice and cupped a hand around his mouth so that only Weevil could hear him. As if anybody else would be listening in. “They’re ridiculous! I didn’t even know tits could _get_ that big!”

“They were certainly impressive. Now: name, type, where it’s formed.”

“Impressive? That’s all you gotta say?” Rex slumped forward, his chin bumping against the table. “You’re weird.”

Weevil had a feeling Rex didn’t know where granite was formed.

It wasn’t the library’s fault, he knew. If it hadn’t been girls with giant boobs, it would’ve been something on TV, a bird outside the window, a smudge on Weevil’s glasses. It was routine.

“It was about time to stop, anyway,” Weevil said as he slipped the flashcard back into the deck.

“They’re really cute,” Rex chirped.

“Are they.”

“Of course they are! What, big tits ain’t yer thing?”

“I’m not having this conversation with you again.”

“Well, guess that means there’s less competition for me, huh?” Rex suddenly snapped upright, a determined grin blazing across his face. “I’m gonna go talk to them! See if I can score their numbers!”

Weevil quirked a brow. “You are?”

“Why not? Ain’t I a catch?” He struck a lame pose, forming guns with his fingers.

Weevil didn’t answer him.

“I’ll take yer silence as a yes!”

“What would you even talk to them about?” Weevil asked, scanning over the papers spread out in front of him and pretending to be uninterested. “Most people stop being concerned about dinosaurs around age five.”

Rex rubbed at his chin. “That’s a question. Hmm—oh, I know! I’ll employ the ol’ Malcolm trick! Give them the Chaos Theory spiel! You know, Butterfly Effect and stuff. You like that one, right?”

“It’s riveting.”

Rex looked around their table, searching for his instruments of success. “Do you have a bottle or somethin’? I need water in order to make it work right.”

Weevil did indeed have a water bottle in his backpack, but he didn’t really want to offer it up as a sacrifice for Rex’s unproductive efforts with women. Instead, he said: “Don’t bother. That’s never worked before, and it won’t work today.”

“You’re always so _patronizing_ , man! Can’t you be supportive for once?” Rex huffed at him. “I get it—you’re jealous, ain’tcha?”

“Jealous? Of _you_?” Weevil snorted. “Looks like your tiny pea-brain has finally stopped functioning.”

Rex’s smile sharpened to a lethal point. “Of the girls, dumbass. For stealin’ my attention away from _you_.”

Weevil blinked. He didn’t understand the joke Rex was trying to make at first—Rex wasn’t very good at whatever he called “jokes.” But when it _did_ finally dawn on him, he jolted back so fiercely, his chair made the tiled floor scream.

“How dare you!” he shrieked through his nose. “You think _way_ too highly of yourself, you—you Cretaceous _cuckold_!”

“Grrk—I’m sorry, _what_ did you just call me?”

“Listen up!” Weevil got to his feet. “I challenge you to a contest, Rex Raptor!”

Rex slapped a hand over his mouth in an attempt—and failure—to hide his laughter. “C-contest? I’m listenin’, I’m listenin’.”

“We both take turns asking those girls out!” He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at the table in question. “Whoever winds up with their numbers wins the game!”

“Oh? Sounds interestin’.” Rex leaned forward on his knuckles. “I don’t think there’s anything in it for you, though, so why bother?”

“Shut up!”

“Besides,” Rex said, “I wasn’t all that serious about it. They’re way outta my league.” He cackled evilly. “I just wanted to see yer reaction. And, as usual, ya didn’t disappoint!”

“Then you forfeit!” Weevil pushed his glasses high up his nose and straightened out his sweater and bowtie, trying his best to make himself look presentable. Being around Rex made him feel sloppy.

Rex’s eyes trained in on the dip of his neckline, at his bowtie. “Whaddya doin’?”

“I’m going to go talk to them!”

“What? _Why_? Didn’t ya hear what I said?” His voice cracked. Weevil felt successful.

“Look who’s jealous now, twerp.”

Rex flapped his mouth wordlessly, like an earwig snapping its useless pincers open and shut. All buzz, no sting.

And, before he could be stopped, Weevil turned away and headed towards the duo of girls. The will to prove Rex wrong (and to give him a piece of his goddamn mind) triumphed whatever embarrassment he might’ve normally felt at talking to a pair of pretty girls. He hoped it didn’t peter out in the middle of his conversation.

One of the girls—Triple D-Cup McGee—noticed his approach. She smiled at him.

“Can I help you?” she asked. Her voice carried a twinge of a foreign accent, but Weevil couldn’t place from where.

He paused, hovering near enough to the table to talk, but not close enough to feel natural.

The other girl had raised her head, too. Both of their blue eyes sparkled at him, like… like… something poetic, he was sure, but he didn’t have the mental capacity to think of a good comparison at the moment.

He felt very, very awkward.

“Umm.” How were you supposed to talk to girls? Rex often boasted of his own exploits, but Weevil tuned him out most of the time. God, how he wished he had payed attention….

The two girls looked at one another and giggled. Weevil wanted to die.

“Your accent,” was the first thing that popped into mind (well, there was also _titstitstitsohgodthosethingscannotbenatural_ , but he figured that wasn’t the best place to start). “Sorry, I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation, and—your accents are so intriguing.” He twiddled with his glasses. “I was wondering where you two are from?”

“We’re from America,” the other one, F-Cup Joe, said.

“America,” Weevil repeated in wonder. “How fascinating. Which part?”

“California! Near San Francisco, actually.”

“Ah. I’ve visited California before. Lovely place.” Not.

“It’s home,” D-Cup McGee said. She giggled into a crooked finger. “I like Tōkyō a lot, but I miss America sometimes! Classwork is a lot more rigorous here! I’m in the library almost every night to study.”

“It’s a chore, isn’t it? I’m here all the time, too.” Though he didn’t need to study very hard in order to succeed.

“Oh? All by yourself?” the girl asked.

“No, I’m here with someone. The shrimp over there, with the stupi—with the red beanie.”

Weevil turned to gesture at Rex. He obviously hadn’t been expecting it—Weevil was close enough to hear a tiny “eep” escape him, before he clawed madly for his textbook, flung open a random page, and pretended to be engrossed in it. The dumbass had the thing upside down.

“Oh, what a cutie,” D-Cup McGee marveled. “Look at those curls! I want to ‘boing’ them!”

“He seems like a sweetheart,” F-Cup Joe agreed. “You’re so lucky he’s willing to spend Friday night studying with you.”

“He’s lucky _I’m_ willing to study with _him_.”

“Still! It must be nice.” F-Cup propped her head up on her palm and sighed dreamily. “All I have is my sister for stuff like this. If I asked _my_ boyfriend to hang out on Friday night, only to force him to study… jeez, I don’t want to think about it.”

Weevil didn’t see how that comment had anything to do with their current conversation.

“Is there something wrong with having me as a study-buddy, sis?”

“N-no, not at all! A change of pace would be nice, is all.”

“Are you kidding? Nobody would put up with your awful study behavior like I do!”

“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?”

He was losing them.

“My friend thinks you’re cute,” Weevil blurted for no reason he could think of.

The two girls stopped their bickering to look at him.

He didn’t know why he had went with that phrasing in particular: his self-imposed challenge had involved getting the girls numbers. Then again, he had absolutely no interest in girls’ numbers, so he wouldn’t have had anything to do with them… plus, he had never specified that the numbers had to be for _himself_. Having your friend swoop in to land numbers for you before you could get the chance was almost worse than flirting for one’s own personal gain, he supposed.

D-Cup was the first to respond. “Who, beanie guy?”

Weevil nodded. “H-he sent me over here to tell you guys that he—uh—thinks that. That you’re, erm, cute.” Good, good, that sounded pathetic. Make Rex sound bad, get him numbers out of pity. Hilarious.

The two exchanged puzzled glances with one another.

“Are you sure?” F-Cup asked.

That wasn’t the response Weevil was expecting.

“Umm. Pretty sure.” His brows knotted. “Why do you ask?”

“He’s really cute,” D-Cup said, voice a whine. “Man, I wish!”

“Well, it may not be my place to say, but….” F-Cup tapped her painted nails together. “He’s been looking over here the entire time, you know. He’s being really obvious about it.”

“He’s not subtle,” Weevil admitted.

“Yes, but he’s not looking at _us_.”

“Pardon?”

The two girls shared another look—something on a level Weevil couldn’t hope to decipher—then both chuckled at their unvoiced joke.

Weevil whipped his head around to look at Rex, figuring the answer might lie with him. He made eye contact, catching him mid-stare. Rex squeaked and quickly returned to reading his upside-down textbook. His cheeks were glowing, and he could see him tapping his foot and drumming his fingers in impatience.

“Aww,” F-Cup cooed, “you two are cute together.”

Weevil finally got it.

He got it, and he wanted _to get the fuck out of there_. And then find a corner to hide in. And then metamorphosize into a cocoon. And then emerge as a great moth so he could fly away from this stupid library. And then die.

“Cute, but dumb, huh?”

“You have it _all_ wrong,” Weevil said, and he cursed how feeble his voice sounded. He was sure that his face must have been an alarming shade of red—from embarrassment, of course, but mostly from pure _rage_.

“That wasn’t very nice of you,” F-Cup scolded her sister.

“You’re thinking it, too!”

“I’ve had it with the two of you,” Weevil found himself saying. “How… how _rude_ can you be? You’re like gnats! _Mosquitos_! It’s creeps like you who deserve to be _swatted_!”

F-Cup winced. D-Cup choked on a swallowed laugh.

Before they could continue their ludicrous conversation, Weevil stomped back over to his table. Rex perked up at his approach, sliding his textbook away.

“How’d it go?” he asked. He sounded wary.

Weevil gathered up his books and papers, shoving them haphazardly into his bag.

“Language barrier,” he said, then slung the still-unzipped backpack over his shoulder. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.”

 

**5.**

 

Espa Roba was, for what Weevil’s opinion was worth, a fine roommate. Weevil’s biggest complaint about him was that he was way too friendly: he was always asking Weevil how his day was, if he was doing well in class, if he had any plans for the weekend. It was obnoxious—it was like living with his mom all over again. Not to mention how cheesy he was: he was on the phone with his family every other hour, wishing them well and updating them on his life. It was maddening.

He was also a communications major, which meant that while Weevil was studying his ass off for his biology final the next morning, Espa could lounge around on their couch and watch reruns of _The X-Files_ with no worries of getting any less than a solid A. Mulder and Scully’s bickering made it difficult to concentrate on mitochondria.

“Do you think you could turn that off?” Weevil called from his spot at their cramped kitchen table. Both of their rooms were too tiny for desks, so they had to take turns using the kitchen. Not that either one did a lot of studying in-house….

Espa glanced up from the television screen, lazily. “You’ve been at that book for ages, Weevil. Don’t you think it’s time to take a break?”

“Unlike some people, I have actual classes I need to study for,” he shot back. “Besides, I only have one final left, and it’s at seven-thirty-in-the-morning tomorrow. I need to study while I have the chance.”

“Hmm.” Espa put a finger to his temple. “Here’s a tip from the existential forces of the universe: if you’re studying the night before a test, then you’re already doomed to fail.”

“The existential forces of the universe can go suck a cock.”

Espa’s nose scrunched in distaste, but he begrudgingly reached for the remote and shut off the TV. He settled with playing with his phone instead.

Ah, silence at last.

Weevil rarely got the opportunity to study in silence. It was kind of surreal—he was used to having somebody there to bounce ideas and understandings off of, even if that person had no idea what was going on half the time. He also missed the company, but only a little bit. A microscopic bit. Less-than-the-size-of-an-ant bit.

It was nearing ten-thirty P.M. He really ought to go to bed soon, but his drive to finish his review kept him pressing on. Maybe he’d pull an all-nighter….

It was ten-thirty-three when there was a knock at their door.

Weevil paused his scribbling. Knocks at the door in the evening never leant themselves to positive things, he was well aware.

He hoped they weren’t about to get mugged.

He looked over at Espa. Espa looked over at him—just as clueless as he, it seemed.

“Well, _I’m_ not answering it,” Weevil said.

The person knocked again, louder this time.

“It might be someone important.”

“Then you answer it.”

“Umm. It’s late, though… what if it’s some kind of, ah, scam?”

He doubted it, but the unease remained. You could never be too sure, especially in the big city.

Weevil was content with ignoring their meddlesome guest, up until the doorknob starting jostling. Someone was trying to unlock it.

Oh, he _really_ hoped they weren’t about to get mugged.

Espa jumped into an upright position and scurried back across the couch. “Ack—! What’s going on?!” He surveyed the area around him frantically, then reached down to wrap a hand around a glass bottle of soda he had been nursing earlier. A weapon of the mightiest proportions, certainly.

When the perpetrator finally got their knob unlocked, the door flew open with such a tyrannical _crash_ , the framed photos mounted on the wall (all of which were Espa’s, and of Espa’s extended family—who all looked creepily similar to Espa) clattered to the floor.

And in stomped Rex Raptor.

Really, Weevil didn’t know who else he had been expecting.

“What the—?” Espa released his hold on the bottle, letting it drop. Thank goodness they had carpet, or else there would’ve been a metric ass-ton of shattered glass they would’ve had to deal with. “Weevil, you gave him a key? You need to discuss these things with me!”

Rex made a beeline for the couch. He stopped when he saw Espa lying there, then blew out a hot breath through his nose. Espa squeaked.

“I didn’t give him a key,” Weevil said. But he had told him where they hid their spare.

Rex continued to stare down Espa. Espa fidgeted awkwardly under his gaze, looking every which way in the apartment other than at Rex’s face.

Weevil got to his feet, marking his place and closing his textbook in the process.

“Rex, what the hell are you doing here? You know I have a test tomorrow!” He snuck a glance at the clock on the wall. “And why are you here this late?”

Rex didn’t respond.

“Hey, dildo-face,” he tried again, feeling his eyebrow twitch. “Answer me. You can’t just barge into my house whenever you want! What’s your problem?”

When Rex turned to look at him, Weevil choked.

He looked _awful_. Grime splattered his cheeks, and his hair twisted in unkempt, snarled corkscrews. His face was pale, his pupils big and blown, his clothes sweaty. Bags had formed under his eyes—his left one, anyway. Weevil couldn’t tell about the right, for a dark-blue bruise clouded around his eyelid.

Weevil’s mind ran cold with thousands of questions. What happened? Had he gotten into a fight? Had he been beaten up? Weevil’s apartment was four hours away from Rex’s own—when had the injury happened? How? Who? Where? When? Why?

The first action he took, though, was not to ask a question. Rather, his body moved on its own, rushing him over to the refrigerator, plucking out one of the butterfly-shaped icepacks he’d use for his box lunches, and wrapping it up in a thin dishtowel.

“Ice it,” he said as he arrived at Rex’s side, holding out the crude remedy. He had meant to sound stern, but his concern shattered his voice. He ended up sounding like a prepubescent runt.

Rex regarded the icepack indifferently. What stuck out to Weevil most of all, even more than the clout dabbing his features in ugly watercolor, was Rex’s expression: or rather, his lack of expression. Weevil had seen his face range from rage to delight, from depression to passion—but never before had he seen him so vacant. Empty. Like a hollow shell, void of soul.

It wouldn’t have been his first time looking like that, would it?

Weevil’s chest seized hard, and he suddenly found it difficult to breathe.

“Oh my,” Espa said from the couch, checking his watch-less wrist in an elaborate gesture, “would you look at the time! I have, uh, class! That I need to go to! Right away!”

Weevil didn’t question this mysterious end-of-the-term eleven-o’clock-at-night class.

Espa launched to his feet and quickly began gathering up his belongings. When he was satisfied with the amount of junk he had crammed into his backpack, he passed by Weevil on his way to the door and whispered low enough for Rex not to hear.

“If things, uh, you know… _accumulate_ ,” he said with a vague motion of his hands, “put a sock on the door. Leave a note. Something. Please. For my sake.”

He didn’t know what he meant by that, but he couldn’t honestly give a shit at that moment.

Espa glanced at Rex, who returned the look with another hostile huff. He swallowed a quiet “meep” of distress, before beating a hasty getaway out the still-open door.

As soon as the door closed, the stone-chilled tension in Rex’s face thawed immediately. His cheeks flushed into a violent widow-red and his lips gnarled, though he brought his hands up to hide himself.

And then, with a deep, trembling breath, Rex began to cry.

 _Wail_ was the more accurate description. Big, throaty wails that made the eavesdropping walls close in tight around them, trapping and suffocating them both.

Rex scrubbed at his face, trying desperately to force the tears back into his eyes. His voice broke in a way Weevil had never heard before, and in a way he vowed to never let himself hear again.

“I’m an idiot,” Rex managed amidst all of his half-choked sobs.

Weevil could only blink. “What happened?”

“I’m a fucking _idiot_!”

He took a step closer and reached out to take one of Rex’s arms. He pushed it away to reveal his tear-streaked face, then pressed the icepack to the welt beneath his eye. Rex flinched at the chill, but he didn’t pull away.

“Did you get into a fight?” Weevil asked.

Rex shook his head.

“Did somebody beat you up?”

Another shake.

“Then how did you get this bruise?” He could feel it burning through the icepack—it was still fresh.

Rex mumbled a cluster of half-syllables through his sobs, pathetically unintelligible.

“Calm down,” Weevil said, because he had absolutely no idea how to comfort somebody who was sobbing his goddamn guts out at eleven-o’clock on a Wednesday night.

Rex sucked down a handful of shallow breaths and tried again: “O-on my way here, I ran—ran in—into a post.”

“A post?”

“A—a post.”

“Like, a lamppost?”

“I think it—it was a stop sign or somethin’.”

“How’d that happen?”

“I-I was distracted.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“It’s _true_!”

“Then why are you crying?”

“I’m not crying!” cried Rex.

Weevil set his free hand on Rex’s back and gave him a gentle nudge in the direction of the couch. Rex let himself be guided, and the two of them settled close together on the teal cushions. Weevil kept the icepack flush to his cheek.

“Do you want to talk about it?” asked Weevil.

Rex wiped at his eyes. Snot was starting to dribble out his nose and over his lips, slickening them with a sickly sheen that made Weevil shiver in disgust.

“I dunno,” he answered.

“If you didn’t want to talk about it,” said Weevil, “why did you take a two hour train ride at eleven at night?”

“I-it wasn’t eleven when I left.”

“That’s not the point.”

“I had nowhere else to go.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, uh, this… I didn’t… I don’t honestly know why,” Rex clarified with a cloggy sniff. “I just—I felt—my body moved on its own, and I… I didn’t know where I was goin’ or where I was until I was an hour in, and then I figured that I was already committed you—you know?”

Weevil wondered if Rex was inebriated, or high, or both. Maybe that stop sign had knocked the already-sparse amount of wits clean out of him.

Instead of confirming or denying whether or not he “knew” what Rex was talking about, Weevil only looked at him, baiting another answer.

“And I don’t know why. I mean—what would you know, anyway? You don’t get it at all. And it really pisses me off, but I keep comin’ back to you anyway, and it makes me really fuckin’ angry, but only when I’m not around’ya, ’cuz when I am around’cha it does feel like y’know shit, and it makes m’feel happy, but that’cha know the shit m’talkin’bout jus’ makes m’more mad when I thinka’bout’t when ’m’notta’round’cha, and that entire fuckin’ train ride m’was just thinkin’ ’bout ho’much I hate’cha, but not really ’cuz you ain’t’dun nothin’ wrong—but m’guess maybe how I hate m’self, y’know, ’cuz I’mma fuckin’ idiot, y’know—course y’know—but ’iunno’f’y’kno’m’mean ya keep fuckin’angin’ wit’me s’maybe y’unno but y’tell me I’m an idiot so y’do like duh y’dumb shit but’n feel li’y’don meannit serious but’cha should ’cuz I really amma’uckin’r’tard’y’kno’annit’isses’m’da’uck’f’real’fuckin’bad’n’—and it just—just—!” He ran out of breath, then devolved into even louder sobs.

Maybe that was a good thing, because Weevil couldn’t understand a single word he was saying.

“Breathe,” he said, giving Rex’s back a pat. “Breathe, and start over.”

Rex drank in another short gulp. “I’m g-gettin’ kicked out!”

“Kicked out? Of what?”

“ _School_!”

And then Weevil understood.

“Your exams,” he didn’t quite ask.

“I flunked! I flunked outta fuckin’ _geology_! And if—if ya can’t do that, then they just—they kick you outta the major!” He was quaking. Weevil knew how Rex acted when he got upset—if this had been his own apartment, chairs would’ve lost their legs, walls would’ve been punched. But, out of respect for Weevil’s home, all he could do was claw at his face with his nails and yank _hard_ at his own hair.

“Stop that!” Weevil slapped at Rex’s hands. Argh, he needed more arms—he couldn’t ice his wound and keep him from hurting himself at the same time.

“I don’t _understand_ ,” Rex wept, ignoring Weevil’s attempts to stop him. He pulled so harshly at his hair, the strands were starting to snap. There was going to be clumps of Rex-hair all over the floor. “I tried so _hard_! I did! I studied every day, and I thought—I thought I was doin’ well! I memorized _everything_! But I wasn’t good enough, and I failed! _Again_!”

“You know this for sure?” asked Weevil.

“Th-the grade was posted today.”

“Can you retake the class?”

“I can’t afford that! I can barely afford my apartment! An’ my parents are gonna stop helpin’ me, soon as they find out! And then I won’t have anywhere to live, and _then_ what am I gonna do? I can’t go to school, since I’ll needa getta job! But how am I supposed t’ get a job that pays for an apartment without a _degree_ —?”

“Slow down,” Weevil said, attempting to sound soothing. He was pretty sure he was failing miserably. “You’re leaping to conclusions. Your parents aren’t going to abandon you because you failed a class—that’s ridiculous.”

Right?

In all his years of knowing Rex, Weevil had never once met his family. They had been brought up in conversation approximately three times—and all three of those times, Rex had moved onto a different topic of conversation faster than a cockroach scurrying from a boot.

Maybe that wasn’t the best assumption to make.

Weevil tried a different method: “Well, you didn’t fail all of your classes, right? Just the one?”

Judging by Rex’s strangled noises, neither was that.

He wasn’t very good at this.

He wondered, vaguely, how Rex would have handled this if the situation had been reversed: if it had been Weevil who arrived at his doorstep in the middle of the night, puking his heart into his hands. Would he have tried to comfort him?

Of course he would have—that was a stupid question. But what would he have said?

That was the _wrong_ question: he wouldn’t have said anything. Rex wasn’t good at words—and, in that moment, neither was Weevil.

He set the icepack down on the cushion behind him. Rex perked up at the sudden loss, giving Weevil full view of his bloodshot eyes. They hurt his heart.

When had that started?

The Weevil Underwood from years ago—the one who threw children’s trading cards into the ocean and cheated in tournaments—would’ve laughed at Rex Raptor’s tears. Crying over a bad grade? Childish. _Getting_ a bad grade? Stupid, and not worthy of Weevil Underwood’s time. And besides—it wasn’t fun to win games if the loser didn’t cry about it.

But now, seeing Rex cry made Weevil’s thoughts tangle and his chest tighten in all sorts of ways he didn’t care for. He felt like _he_ was going to cry, like Rex was a mirror for his soul.

He didn’t like it.

So he did what Rex would’ve done: he opened up his arms and beckoned for him.

Rex didn’t hesitate—he wrapped his arms around Weevil, buried his face into his neck, and _melted_. Weevil was left to support both of their weights, which he couldn’t really do in their current position; so he slumped onto the cushions until he was lying down with Rex on top of him.

Rex continued to cry—if anything, he seemed to be crying harder. Weevil could feel his tears and his snot moistening the fabric of his turtleneck. He should’ve gotten him a tissue before lying down….

“I don’t get it,” Rex was saying into Weevil’s neck, somehow comprehensible through all the wetness. “I tried m’ best. I tried really, really hard—like I did on my stupid-ass entrance exams, too. I wanted to study dinos so badly, but now I _can’t_ , because I’m a fuckin’ idiot.”

“Don’t say that about yourself,” Weevil scolded.

“Why not? Don’tcha think it’s true?”

Weevil ran both his hands along Rex’s back. He tried combing through his hair, but the snarls thwarted his plans.

“I’ve known you for a long time, Rex Raptor,” Weevil said, focusing on the thin texture of his jacket. “I know that you can be hotheaded, arrogant, loud-mouthed, perverted, and rude.”

“That’s not makin’ me feel any better, y’know….”

“Let me finish,” he growled. “You’re all those things and more, _but_. You’re also fair, passionate, strong-willed, and kind. You’re one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. It’s infuriating, in all honesty. I mean, you hang around with _me_ , of your own free will. You have to be pretty damn nice to put up with _me_.”

He sensed what may have constituted as a chuckle breathe warm over his skin. “That just proves m’point. I’m an idiot.”

“That’s not it,” Weevil objected. “Idiots don’t _try_ , either when it comes to schoolwork or befriending an asshole or winning a game: idiots give up. I’ve never known you to give up.”

“It’s smart knowin’ when you’ve reached your limit,” Rex countered.

“But it’s dumb to be afraid of your own limitations, isn’t it? If you want something, then you try your hardest for it. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. It fucking sucks to lose, sure—and trust me, I know what it feels like. You can vouch for me on that front, can’t you?”

Rex went quiet.

“It sucks to lose, but if you run away from failure—that’s what makes you an idiot. If you don’t at least _try_ to win, then you’re stuck as you are.” Weevil drew untraceable shapes into his back. “I’ve met quite a few idiots in my day, Rex Raptor, but I know that you’re not one of them. And I know it sucks right now, and you might blame your decisions—but that’s stupid. Things will get better. After all, life finds a way.”

Rex didn’t respond. He didn’t cry, either, which Weevil took as a good sign.

He didn’t dare make a move to get up, even as he watched the clock tick minutes away. Rex’s breath labored, and every so often he would suck down some hiccup-laced pants.

His hands seemed to be helping. Weevil wasn’t one for prolonged periods of physical contact, but Rex was different. Rex had always _been_ different. And though it didn’t feel comfortable, what with Rex’s joints sticking into him at weird angles and his greasy hair tickling his nose, it didn’t feel _weird_. Neither did the shapes he sketched with his palms, nor the soft praises he chanted under his breath, nor the quick kiss he planted to the top of Rex’s head when he was certain exhaustion had clouded his senses—

Rex whipped his head up, his skull ramming into Weevil’s jaw.

“Ye- _yeowch_!” Weevil clutched at his chin, and whatever sweet thoughts his mind had been plaiting vanished in an instant. “What the hell was that for, you carnivorous klutz?”

Rex’s mouth was agape, his eyes wide.

“You kissed me,” he gasped.

So much for Rex not noticing.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Weevil asked, avoiding eye contact. “That was years ago. Plus, I thought we agreed to never talk about it again.”

“Just now,” he said, “you kissed me.”

“What?! I did not! How _dare_ you!”

And then Rex started to cry again.

“Ack—!” Fucking hell—he’d screwed up. Just after he had done such a good job, too…! “Okay, fine, I did! It was just—it was just a reflex thing! Don’t get the wrong idea! Don’t _cry_!” He patted at Rex’s back, less sweetly and more like he was button-mashing the off-switch.

“Ya beat me _again_ ,” Rex said. The tears didn’t last long—he swallowed most of them with a husky breath. “You’re really startin’ to piss me off, Weeves.”

Weevil pursed his lips. “Wh-what are you talking about?”

Rex looked at him, eyes glassy and face beet-red, and—for the first time that night—smiled. Smiled his supervolcanic, asteroid-impacting, extinction-inducing grin.

“I wanna kiss you, too,” he said.

Weevil’s heart dropped.

“I’ve wanted to kiss you for a long time, but you beat me to the punch.” He tilted his head. “I guess, by your definition, not acting on what I want—that makes me an idiot. Right?”

Weevil’s brain buzzed as if his bones were breeding bees. He wet his quickly-drying lips, and his gaze darted from Rex’s eyes, to his tear-stained cheeks, to the crook of his canines.

He gulped heavily. Words were not his ally that night.

“Maybe,” he managed to say.

“Figured.” He scooted closer, riding up on Weevil at an angle that made his mind spin. “So, can I?”

“Can you—?”

“Kiss you?”

This was a bad idea.

Every nerve along Weevil’s spine was screaming at him: this was a bad, bad, bad times infinity idea of the _worst_ proportions. It was late, and they were both exhausted. Delirious. Rex was too emotional for this kind of decision. So was Weevil, for that matter.

It was a bad idea, and Weevil was an idiot.

But alas, he wasn’t enough of an idiot.

So he grabbed either side of Rex’s face and pulled him into a quiet kiss. He felt him stiffen, but he quickly mellowed—and he returned softly with his own.

It was a lot different than their first kiss: there was no rush, no drunk teenagers, no competition. It was slow. Boring. Rex tasted like snot.

Neither of them lasted very long. Rex broke the kiss first, then nuzzled back into Weevil’s neck. As the clock ticked into tomorrow, Rex’s breathing deepened, and Weevil drifted.

When Espa woke the both of them up seven hours later, he had some choice words to say about socks.

 

**+1.**

 

Weevil liked spring. After months of silent death, everything rose back to life—flowers, spirits, bugs. Especially bugs. Bugs were fucking everywhere in the spring.

Rex Raptor _hated_ spring.

Even after knowing Weevil Underwood, bug expert extraordinaire, for years, he never warmed up to the stupid things. They had too many legs and too big of eyes. They were _creepy_.

He liked flowers, though. Who didn’t? Flowers were fucking awesome—cherry blossoms especially. Bloom once, die after a week? Badass. He dug it.

Mount Yoshino was wreathed beautifully in pale pinks and deep greens. It was also wreathed with tourists, but that was to be expected for the time of year. Luckily, the path Rex and Weevil were currently winding down was void of people, due to it being closed off to the public.

“It’s so _pretty_ ,” Rex remarked, gazing up at the ceiling of blossoms overhead. “I didn’t know nature could get so… pink.”

“Saigyō would’ve creamed himself,” Weevil agreed from beside him.

“Uh, yeah. Totally.” He didn’t know what that meant.

“Right, so the trees in question are just up ahead,” Weevil said, shaking out his paper map. “All I’m doing today is scouting out the affected areas. I’ll mark off the section for tomorrow—I can only start the research once the entire team arrives.”

Rex’s shoulders sagged. “Are you even looking at the flowers, man?”

“I’m here on business. If we don’t determine the cause of the white ants’ infestation of the cherry trees here, then there won’t _be_ any more flowers.” Weevil shivered. “Or worse, there won’t be any more white ants.”

“But they let you bring me, didn’t they? So it’s not entirely business.”

Weevil grumbled something unintelligible and returned to his map.

The deeper the path snaked into the forests of Mount Yoshino, the thicker the trees and blossoms grew. If he had been more poetic or well-read, Rex might have compared the journey to something out of a fantasy novel or Miyazaki movie. But instead, all Rex could think about was how _pink_ everything was, and how much he needed to sneeze—again, again, and again.

“You’re scaring all of the bugs away,” Weevil complained after his umpteenth wheeze.

“Good riddance,” said Rex.

“Why did you even come, then? You could’ve stayed in the hotel! Or, better yet, you could’ve _not come at all_!”

“And miss out on a chance like this? C’mon! This place is famous!” At least, he thought it was. The tourists implied that it was pretty famous.

Weevil wrinkled his nose in that cute way he did whenever Rex poked his buttons. “It’s work. It’s not supposed to be fun.”

“Fun is what you make of it!” Rex’s gait bounced. “You getta go to a part’a these super famous mountains that nobody ’cept real bigwigs get to see! That’s real cool! You’re allowed to take your time and enjoy it a little.”

“I’d enjoy it more if somebody wasn’t scaring the bugs away.”

“Ain’t I better than bugs?”

“Hmm.”

“Hey! Whaddya mean, ‘hmm,’ _hmm_?”

Weevil cackled into the back of his hand, high and nasally. Sweetly, too, but an acquired taste—just like the rest of Weevil. Fortunately, Rex had had a lot of time to acquire it.

He stopped mid-stride, nearly causing Rex to bump into his back, then turned to face him. The early-afternoon sunlight glinted off of his square spectacles. The new glasses, the cropped hair, the practical-for-hiking-yet-still-somehow-business-casual outfit: for once in his life, he looked his age. The fullness of his cheeks always worked against him, though, as did his pitiful height.

“I suppose I’m not in a rush,” he said, giving his glasses a push. “As long as I inspect the area by sundown.”

“Do you know how long it’s gonna take to, uh, ‘inspect’ it?”

“Couple of hours, maybe.”

Rex wilted. “That’s so long! I wanted to do some stuff in town today, too… they had so many weird foods I wanted to try.”

“Nobody’s stopping you, you know.”

“But it’s no fun without’cha, lovebug!”

Weevil made a disgruntled little noise from the back of his throat and looked away. “You’re insufferable.”

That was Weevilese for _I love you too_.

When his gaze returned, Weevil’s attention was caught by something above Rex, near his head. A cruel smile snuck onto his lips.

“You’re a mess,” he muttered into his hand.

Rex blinked, then looked behind him, then above. “What’s wrong?” His face fell, and his limbs froze up. “Th-there’s not a bug on me, is there? Oh—oh god, Weeves, where is it—?”

“Relax, moron. I’ll get it.”

“ _Where is it—_?!”

Weevil stepped closer, then reached up to the top of Rex’s head. Rex didn’t dare move, lest he incur the wrath of whatever freaky thing was on him—or, worse, incur Weevil’s wrath if he squashed it.

He plucked something from Rex’s hair. He held it out for him to see, which almost made him jump twenty feet back (“Don’t _show_ it to me! Get it _away_!” he would’ve screamed), but he realized—just in time—that what Weevil held between his fingers was not a bug, but a stray blossom.

Rex’s anxiety ebbed. “That’s it? Jeez, you scared me…!”

Weevil stretched again, culling more flowers from Rex’s hair. “They’re everywhere on you. Maybe they wouldn’t get stuck if you cut it every once in a while, hmm?”

“I like my hair just fine the way it is, thank you!” But that sure was a lot of flowers Weevil was picking out—jeez, how had he not noticed any of them?

“I’m not saying you should. I’m only stating the facts.” Weevil smirked at him. “I like it, too.”

A compliment from Weevil was a rare and precious thing, so Rex accepted it with a grin. Weevil looked away when he noticed, as he often did—maybe it was too much. Rex didn’t know, and he didn’t have the courage to ask.

This was _painful_ , he thought. He was glad he came, sure—any time alone with Weevil was a commodity these days—but the atmosphere was sweetly sickening, in that sugar-on-cornflakes, shōjo manga, Dark Magician Girl kind of way.

Rex reached into his pocket and fumbled with the cool object lying inside. It calmed him to touch it, like a worry stone. He’d been using it as a crutch as of late, which was a habit he had to quit soon—considering it wouldn’t be his for long.

“Uh,” he said, scratching the back of his head, “this is your first big job, ain’t it? That’s still so awesome! Sometimes I can’t believe it.”

“Neither can I,” Weevil said, but he sounded distant. His fingers continued to thread through Rex’s hair, despite Rex doubting there were any blossoms left.

“I kinda wanted to, uh, _celebrate_ somehow, y’know?”

“There’s no time.”

“N-not like that!” Oh, this was coming out all clunky. He didn’t like words—but if he didn’t preface his actions, Weevil wouldn’t understand what he meant. “I mean, uh, I gotcha something! To celebrate!”

“A gift?” Weevil frowned. “That wasn’t necessary.”

“I know it ain’t _necessary_ , but a lot of things ain’t _necessary_.” The thing in Rex’s pocket felt like it was getting heavier the more he talked about it. Jeez, what a pain… he felt like he was carrying the thing to Mordor or something.

Weevil wasn’t persuaded. “Still. Don’t be under the impression that you—I—we have to celebrate every little thing. It gets tiring.”

“Well, ’s not that big of a thing, y’know? It’s just a li—”

“Oi, ’ _scuze_ _me_! Mind helpin’ a fella out?”

Whenever Rex was taken by surprise, his gut instinct was to jump towards Weevil, even wrap his arms around him if allowed the opportunity. He almost never got the chance, though, because Weevil’s instinct was to shove and/or punch whatever was near him (ala Rex) as hard as he could and scuttle away like a cornered cockroach.

“ _Who_?” Weevil hissed, voice squeaky and face red. He was doubled over, hand stamped over his chest.

That was a good question.

Rex turned around to face the new voice. Emerging from the woods and onto their off-beaten path was a man, garbed in a silly-looking outfit of cargo shorts, unflattering cherry blossom-printed shirt, and a big, stupid hat. Grass and dirt stains splotched all over his clothes, and twigs stuck out of his big poof of blonde hair. The camera around his neck connoted _tourist_.

Rex was the first to recover his wits. He spoke for the both of them: “Hey, buddy, you ain’t supposed to be here. Trail’s closed to the public.”

“Guh, thought so.” The man itched his cheek sheepishly. “Sorry ’bout that! Me an’ my sis were tryin’a follow da trail, but we got seriously lost! We’ve been walkin’ around for a long time, but we can’t find our way back ta da main town.” He pointed to the half-crumpled map in Weevil’s hands. “But I saw that this kiddo over here had a map, so I was wonderin’ if ya’d mind givin’ me a point in the right direction!”

“ _Kiddo_?” That knocked Weevil right out of his fear-induced stupor. “Hey, who are you calling _kiddo_? I have a PhD, thank you very much!”

“Huh?” The man blinked, then inspected Weevil once-over. “Nah, you’re jokin’! I mean, look at ya! You’re way too shrimpy to be a doctor!”

“ _Shrimpy_?”

This conversation felt familiar.

Rather, this _guy_ felt familiar. Rex recognized something about him—he knew that hair, that accent, from somewhere deep in his memory. And the closer he got to unraveling that memory, the more _annoyed_ he became.

Then he remembered why.

“Wheeler,” he declared, snapping his fingers.

The man’s squabbling with Weevil hushed, then gawped. “Hey, what’s da big idea? How do ya know who I am?”

“Wheeler?” Weevil repeated. “As in, _Joey_ Wheeler?”

“You too?!” The man audibly gulped. “Yeesh, this is kinda creepy…!”

Weevil moaned, “Oh no, it _is_. I can’t believe this. Oh my _god_.”

The man’s eyes darted between the both of them. He seemed to be searching for a memory of his own, up until it arose, quite plainly, on his face.

“Hey,” he awed, “I know da two’a you! You’re—you’re Dino Dork and Bug Boy!”

He didn’t remember their actual names. Not like Rex had been expecting otherwise.

“Rex Raptor,” he reminded gently, then gestured behind him. “Weevil Underwood.”

Weevil slapped his ass.

“Ack—! I mean, uh, _Doctor_ Weevil Underwood!”

 Joey Wheeler had aged, for sure. He had a faint scruff sketched over his hard jaw, and sun-wrinkles had settled around his eyes and lips. He seemed taller and broader than when Rex had known him during his Duel Monsters days. Man, and Rex thought _he_ had grown… that kind of pissed him off.

Wheeler pumped his clenched fists into the air. “Holy crud, I can’t believe it! Whadd’re the chances of runnin’ inta you two punks in a place like this?”

“Too high,” Rex heard Weevil mutter.

“Jeez, how’ve ya guys been? It’s been forever!” Wheeler grinned in a way that made his eyes sparkle, and—ah, there he was: the smarmy asshole who took his Red Eyes Black Dragon, who destroyed Espa Roba after Rex had gotten his ass handed to him, and who had essentially murdered him that one time after he had been convinced to trade his soul for some rare trading cards. (Weevil's idea, not his.)

Yup, same guy. Rex couldn’t believe it had taken him so long to notice.

“We’ve been good,” Rex said, slapping on a courteous smile. “How ’bout you?”

“Same old, same old! Went ta school, gotta job. Bein’ an adult sucks, but I guess ya gotta do it.”

Rex felt that.

“I’m surprised ta see that ya two still hang out wid each other! It’s comfortin’ knowin’ some things don’t change, I guess.”

Rex folded his arms in front of him and leaned to one side. He was starting to get the feeling that they were going to be there for a while.

“Do you not hang out with Yugi anymore?” he asked.

Wheeler waved his hands in front of him. “Nah, I do! Don’t see ’im as much as I used ta, but we’re still bros!”

Then why would he find it weird that he still knew Weevil?

“So, uh. Elephant in the room an’ all, but—if this area’s closed off ta da public, what’re you two doin’ here?”

Rex looked behind him, figuring that Weevil would be the best person to explain. He loved rambling on and on about his job and his bugs—it was endearing, even if Rex didn’t understand what the hell he was talking about most of the time. He might as well use this opportunity to brag.

But Weevil’s expression took Rex off-guard. His cheeks were flushed, and his gaze was trained firmly at the fallen pink blossoms beneath his shoes. Sweat rolled down his neck, fresh since they had been standing there.

He was uncomfortable. Of course he was—Weevil didn’t like Joey Wheeler, either.

“Weeves’s here for his job,” Rex answered, his tone flattening.

Wheeler looked impressed. “Whoa, dat’s cool. I’d kill ta have a job like dis! The scenery’s amazin’!” He snickered to himself. “Heheh, I’m glad it’s only dat. I thought I was bargin’ in on somethin’ racy for a sec….”

That offhanded comment made Rex snap upright. “What was that?” he asked.

Wheeler flinched, as if he wasn’t expecting to be heard. “Oh! Whoops. I mean, uh, don’t take dis the wrong way or nuthin’, but….” He lowered his voice to a whisper. Who was going to hear them, the bugs? “I was watchin’ you guys for a while, ’cuz it looked like you two were in the middle of a… I dunno, a _moment_. But it just kept goin’ and goin’, and I figured: well, this could go on all day, and I really gotta take a whiz, and I’ve peed in way too many forests for one lifetime—so might as well act now!”

Rex’s eyebrow twitched.

“But now dat I know it was just Rex and Weevil, I feel less bad about it! No harm, no foul, amirite?”

“That ain’t nice of ya to say, Wheeler.”

He startled. “Huh? Oh—no, you got the wrong idea! I thought that you two—you know, I thought… you know?”

“I don’t know,” Rex said, tongue sharp. “Care to explain?”

“Y-you know!” He was making Wheeler uneasy: he kept ruffling his hair beneath his hat, as if that would diffuse the palpable awkwardness. “Wid all da cherry blossoms and stuff around, it looks kinda… _romantic_ , don’t it?”

“It does,” Rex agreed without missing a beat.

“So I thought—you know, I thought!” He pressed his fingertips together, guiltily. “But now dat I know it’s just you two, I don’t feel bad about intrudin’! ’Cuz I wasn’t intrudin’. On anything like dat, at least.”

“Well, I don’t know about that.”

Wheeler blinked. “Eh?”

Before Rex could fuck with him any further, a thump landed hard on his back, almost toppling him over and onto the leafy floor.

“Hey, what did ya do that—?!”

“You needed directions?” Weevil said quickly, cutting Rex off. “The main trail isn’t far from here. I have an extra map, if you really need it.”

Wheeler wrenched his eyes away from Rex. “Oh? Oh! Right! Thank you guys so much!” He bowed his head furiously. “I split up from my sis to go look for help—hang on, I’ll go get ’er! Wait right there for a sec, okay?”

“No, just take the map with you, you idiot—!” Weevil tried to say, but it was too late: as soon as Wheeler had finished his sentence, he had dashed back into the woods.

And then it was the two of them again.

Rex rubbed the aching spot where Weevil had decked him. “That really hurt, you know! I’m not a kid anymore! I have back problems now!”

“First of all, no you don’t—you’re just a big whiner.” Weevil glared up at him, eyes hot with spite. “Secondly, what the hell were you _doing_?”

“I was makin’ polite conversation.”

“You were baiting him.”

“I dunno what’cha mean,” Rex lied.

“What were you trying to accomplish? Couldn’t you have answered his questions normally?”

Rex frowned. “It was Joey Wheeler.”

“So?”

“Joey Wheeler doesn’t know.”

Weevil massaged his temples. “Is it really that big a deal?”

“It is to me,” said Rex.

“ _Why_?” He was getting squeaky again, like a desert rain frog.

Rex shrugged his shoulders. “I like showin’ you off. Especially to people like Joey Wheeler.” He snorted through his nose. “Man, I hate that guy.”

“If you hate him, then don’t tell him about your— _our_ personal lives.” He stumbled over “ _our_ ” like it was a naughty word.

Rex’s expression contorted somewhere halfway between irritation and exhaustion. He had heard the argument from Weevil before: unless somebody asked about them directly, don’t say anything about it. It was none of their business.

It used to hurt his feelings: after all, why hide? It had felt like Weevil was ashamed of him. Rex knew that was the furthest thing from the truth, and Weevil was just being… well, Weevil—but it had still _hurt_. Even now, there was a twinge sparking in his chest—a relative of that anxiety he had felt for so many years before that night in college—and he had to force himself to swallow it. He and Weevil were different people, and that was fine.

It was frustrating, but it was fine.

“You’re right,” he said, shoulders drooping. “I wasn’t thinkin’. I’m sorry.”

Rex’s tone must’ve clued Weevil into his inner dilemma, for a stroke of guilt passed over his face.

“It’s not—it’s not that I’m embarrassed,” he stuttered, his eyes flicking every direction. “It’s just—it’s Wheeler. _Wheeler_! I never thought I’d even have to _think_ about that stupid flea ever again…!”

“I get it,” Rex said, because he just wanted this conversation to be over.

“And it’s weird thinking about Wheeler in relation to— _this_.” Weevil gestured nebulously in between the two of them. “We knew each other long before _this_ , and Wheeler is from _that_ , and making the leap from _that_ to _this_ is difficult for me to do.”

“Of course.”

Weevil didn’t sound convinced. “I’m trying to get better about it.”

“I realize that.”

“It’s just—it’s hard.”

“I understand.”

“But— _do_ you, Rex?”

“I think so.” Rex tilted his head, and his brown bangs fell into his eyes. “What’s the word… I empathize with ya. Or is it ‘sympathize?’” He always got those two confused.

He was so concerned with remembering the nuances between words, he didn’t notice Weevil start to shake.

“I can’t believe you,” he muttered, staring down at the ground. “Insufferable. Insufferable! This is so _stupid_!”

“Hah?” Rex’s forehead creased. “What did I do?” He thought he had handled the dispute pretty well, thank you very much! He wouldn’t have even called it a _dispute_! He wondered if his tone or expression were betraying him…? He didn’t know how they would, though, considering that he was telling the absolute truth.

“You’re so goddamned _insufferable_! Can’t you just get _angry_ at me? For once? God!”

Rex stared at him.

“Angry?” he parroted. “Why would I be angry at you?”

“Because I’m being stupid,” Weevil lamented, drowning his face in his hands.

Rex was confused.

He wasn’t very book-smart—hardly even street-smart, really. But if he had to admit one area of expertise, he would say that he was good with people. Maybe even that was giving himself too much credit: he was good with Weevil Underwood, and that was about it.

He didn’t know how or why that was the case. Whatever he said, even the really stupid shit, brought Weevil closer to him. It had been a pain at first, especially when he was trying to make a name for himself at Duel Monsters.

Yet, the closer they had become, the more Rex liked to test out his skills, until he could admit that he _liked_ Weevil Underwood. That had matured into whatever Weevil had dubbed as _this_ , and—well, here they were.

Saying stupid shit had never bitten him in the ass before when it came to Weevil, so maybe he should just try. Only idiots didn’t try.

“I don’t really know what’cha mean,” Rex admitted. One hand brushed through his hair, while his other found comfort in fiddling with the stone sitting weighty in his pocket. “I don’t think you’re bein’ stupid. If that’s how you feel, Weeves, then it ain’t stupid at all. Different people handle things differently, and—well, you and I are pretty fuckin’ different. If you need more time to adjust, that’s fine. I don’t mind.”

“It’s been years,” Weevil protested. Rex couldn’t read his expression—he was still hiding it beneath his hands.

“You can take as long as you want.” He pursed his lips together. “I’m not gonna lie and say it ain’t frustratin’—I mean, ’course it’s frustratin’, not being able to tell people about’cha. But I wanna make ya happy in any way I can. And I can fuck up at that, like I did just now, but—I’m tryin’ my best, too. I hope ya know that.”

“Don’t you dare apologize to me, you brat—!”

Rex approached him and gently took his wrists. As he pulled them away from Weevil’s face, he locked their fingers together.

“So don’t worry about it, okay?” he murmured. “’Sides, it’s not like I’m goin’ anywhere.”

Weevil refused to look at him.

Argh, this was too stressful! None of his words were getting through Weevil’s thick skull, were they? Figured.

Looked like he needed a different approach.

“I love you,” he tried, reckoning the most direct route was the best route.

“Oh my god—”

“And I’ll always love you.”

“Don’t say stuff like—”

“I can’t see myself thinkin’ any other way,” Rex said. “I’m not happy when I’m not around ya. It’s been like that for as long as I can remember. So even if it takes forever, or it doesn’t happen at all… I’m fine with that. Because I’m happy, and I love you.”

Weevil paused. Eventually, he lifted his head, meeting Rex’s gaze from only the corner of his eye.

“Forever’s a long time,” he said.

“I know.”

Weevil swallowed.

“Do you not believe me?” asked Rex, fearing the worst. Weevil could be pretty fucking dense at times. He needed a way to get through to him: he needed to _act_.

He didn’t give him a response, only a shakily exhaled breath.

“Want me to prove it?”

Another breath. Deep. Long.

“Then marry me.”

That made Weevil stop breathing entirely.

Actually, he stopped breathing for so long, Rex was afraid he killed him. He had to pat his back—once, twice, hard, _harder_ —until Weevil was forced to cough.

“ _What_ did you just _say_?” he squealed, and—well, wasn’t _that_ a lovely shade of red on his face. It reminded Rex of a pretty poison dart frog, or the tufted wings of a male cardinal.

“Marry me,” he said again. The words came easy—easier than any words he had ever spoken before.

Weevil’s mouth hung open. At least he knew he was breathing this time.

Hey. He felt like he was missing something. Of course he was missing something—this had been a spur-of-the-moment thing, but….

“Oh, a ring! I don’t have a ring.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Jeez, that’s kinda shitty, ain’t it? I wonder if—oh!”

He might not have had a ring on him, but he _did_ have that gift burning a hole in his coat. Finally, an opportunity to present it—thank god. He needed to get it off his person.

“I hope this works,” he said, pulling the object, along with its silver chain, out from his pocket. “This was that thing I mentioned earlier, before Wheeler barged in on us. It’s nothin’ special, really… but I saw it and thought of ya.”

He held out the necklace for Weevil to see. Dangling from the end of the long chain was a small, unpolished pendant of burnt amber, glittering gold in the sunlight. Its beauty wasn’t what had drawn Rex to it, though: rather, incased within the stone was the gangly form of a long-dead mosquito, with its legs and wings stretched as if still in flight.

Weevil fluttered his eyelashes. “It’s—?”

“It’s like it’s from _Jurassic Park_!” Rex said, beaming proudly. “I know ya like bugs and all, and—well, in the movie, I think it’s kinda cool how they use bugs to bring the dinos back to life. Like, without the bugs, the whole movie coulda never happened. And I know the entire point is to warn people away from doing shit like that, but… ya can’t deny that it’s still pretty awesome!”

“Ah….”

“I thought there was somethin’ kinda… what’s the word? Romantic, maybe? About bugs helpin’ dinos out. It’s like the two of us!” He hoped that the amber spoke for itself—Rex didn’t think he was accurately articulating why he thought it was so perfect. “And it’s cool from an aesthetic level too, don’tcha think? The place I got it from said it was a genuine fossil! Dunno if it’s true, but I hope so.” After all, it was _expensive_.

Weevil was still gaping at the pendant. Rex had been hoping he would take it at some point, but he was too shocked to move. Or speak. Or—jeez, he had stopped breathing again…!

“Do you want me to get down on one knee?” asked Rex.

Remarkably, Weevil managed to look Rex in the eye. He searched his face, from his eyes, to his lips, to his brow.

“You’re serious,” he breathed, barely audible.

Rex took offense to that. “’Course I’m serious! Ya don’t joke about shit like this!”

Weevil stared at him for another beat—a beat too long, if Rex was being honest—and then opened his mouth. He was expecting him to say something meaningful (hopefully something along the lines of, you know, “yes”).

Instead, he started to sob.

Really loudly.

Rex felt his heart leap into his throat. “Hey— _hey_! W-wait, you don’t hafta…!”

Weevil cried more often than he would’ve admitted. He sniveled at every minor inconvenience, like when he lost a game on the Duel Link, or when he couldn’t get a jar open without Rex’s help.

But this was the first time in a while he had seen Weevil _bawl_. And he had to say, he wasn’t a fan.

Shit—he’d fucked up. Real bad. What had he been thinking? It had been such an impulsive, natural thing: he hadn’t even thought about the possibility of Weevil saying _no_. Actually, didn’t that make sense? Weevil was weird enough about this whole thing—like hell he was going to sign a legal document sealing it in stone. Oh shit, oh jeez—this was bad, abort, abort, _abort_ ….

“You butthead,” Weevil wheezed between nasally cries. Tears rolled full and plump down his cheeks, turning his blush glossy. “You fucking _dick_ , you beat me… before I could…!”

“Beat…?” Rex wasn’t sure what he was talking about.

“You moron! I can’t believe you said it so—”

“Heya, I’m back! Aaaaand I brought Serenity!”

God fucking damn it.

Wheeler burst from the trees with a full smile, his clothes somehow looking more ragged than before. Trailing along behind him was a young woman with a kind countenance. She noticed Weevil’s tears the second she saw him.

“Oh my!” she cried, cupping a hand over her mouth. “Are you okay?”

Fuck, this wasn’t good. If Weevil got too embarrassed, he’d run off to hide somewhere. In any other situation, Rex would’ve been fine with it—hell, it was routine—but he did _not_ want to end up stranded in the mountains with Joey Fucking Wheeler and Joey Fucking Wheeler II, Electric Boogaloo.

But Weevil surprised him: instead of socking him upside the head and fleeing into the hills, he grabbed for Rex’s collar and buried his face into his chest. His crying continued, though. At the top of his lungs.

Wheeler recoiled at the sound and sight, his smile falling. “Whoa! What da heck happened here? Is ’e all right?”

Rex, figuring that he might never get the chance again, wrapped his arms around Weevil and smoothed out the tension along his back.

“It’s okay,” he crooned into his ear. “I mean, uh, maybe it’s not okay. Fuck. I’m sorry—I didn’t mean… I didn’t think ya would… please don’t _cry_ , okay? Please?”

“Is he hurt?” Girl Wheeler asked.

“Yeah, uh, should we call someone? What’s wrong with ’im?”

Weevil sucked down a snotty lump in his throat, then drew away from the safety of Rex’s chest to shoot Wheeler a red-eyed scowl.

“Shut up, Wheeler,” he spat, and his grip on Rex’s clothes tightened. “We’re getting married.”

Rex felt as flabbergasted as Wheeler looked.

“M-m-m-m-ma—?”

Rex was more eloquent, but not by much. “Y-y-you’re saying _yes_?”

“Yes! Of course I’d say _yes_! Don’t be stupid!”

And then Rex’s mind went blank. Blank in a good way, though: like nirvana.

He honestly hadn’t expected to get this far.

Holy shit.

“Can I wear it?” Weevil asked, finding and tugging at the chain still coiled around one of Rex’s hands.

“Huh? Oh! Yeah, ’course!” Rex had to undo and redo the clasp around Weevil’s neck, or else the thing wouldn’t have fit around his head. The amber looked good on him: it complemented the mint of his hair and cream of his clothes. It fell naturally, like it had always been there.

Weevil reached for the pendant, then hesitated before he could touch it.

“It ain’t like ya gonna break it,” Rex teased with a smile.

“Sh-shut up!”

“M-m-m-m- _married_? How long was I gone? Talk about bein’ spirited away!”

Oh, right. They still had this bozo to deal with.

Wheeler’s face was ashen, his jaw to the ground. The other Wheeler looked more confused than anything else.

Weevil huffed and pulled Rex closer. “If you got a problem with that, Wheeler, then you can shove it up your—”

“That’s _awesome_!”

Rex hadn’t been expecting that. Neither had Weevil, judging by his stunned silence.

“I’m so happy for da two of ya! Holy crud!” Wheeler clapped his hands together and hollered. “Talk about luck! Can’t believe I stumbled onto you two in the middle of dis—I feel so honored to be a part of dis moment!”

“Y’ain’t really a _part_ of it,” Rex grumbled. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to be mad: his heart was too full.

“I gotta tell someone about this!”

Weevil tensed in Rex’s arms. He sniffed, still crying. “It’s none of your beeswax, you pest!”

“Congratulations,” the other Wheeler said with a gentle smile. “I don’t know you two personally, but I’m very happy for you. What a lovely place for a proposal.”

Yeah, it was, wasn’t it? Rex had done a good job.

Even Weevil couldn’t manage the willpower to stay angry. He didn’t say thanks, only a mumbled, “You’re damn right.”

Wheeler II did such a good job of distracting from Wheeler Prime that neither Rex nor Weevil realized he had gotten out his phone, up until he shouted, “Hey, _Yuge_!” loud enough to send every bug scampering into the trees.

“He’s _calling_ people?” Weevil whined. “He didn’t even remember our names!”

“You’d never guess who I ran into while I was on vacation! Guess! No wait, don’t guess—it’s Rex and Weevil!”

“He seems happy about it, though,” said Rex.

“Yeah, the kid who threw your Exodia into the ocean! Man, good times.”

“It’s none of his business!”

“I think it’s kinda sweet,” said Rex.

Weevil made a disgusted face.

“Even though he doesn’t really remember us, he’s still happy. Don’tcha think that’s kinda nice?” He smirked at him, gave his side a squeeze. “Guess the power of love is pretty infectious, ain’t it?”

Wheeler hung up the phone with a beep. Rex must have missed the rest of his ones-sided conversation. “Yuge—I mean, uh, Yugi Muto says congratulations, you guys! He’s super happy for you!”

“Whoopie-doo,” Rex deadpanned.

Wheeler furiously punched in another number. “I’m callin’ Tristan next! Then Téa, then Duke, then Bakura! Did you guys ever meet Bakura? Who cares, I’m calling him anyway…!”

“Can we get out of here?” Weevil asked, wriggling in Rex’s hold. “I’m starting to get a migraine.”

“We hafta lead them back to the main trail, don’t we?”

“We could leave them here.”

“ _Tristan_!” Wheeler cried into the phone—jeez, he felt bad for the guy on the other end of the line. “Boy, have I got news for _you_!”

“It’s temptin’, ain’t it,” Rex admitted. “But that wouldn’t be very nice.”

“I’m not nice.”

“Whatever you say, lovebug.”

“Don’t go spreading that—that _lie_ around!”

In response, Rex pressed a soft kiss to Weevil’s forehead. Then another to the tip of his nose, then to his wet cheeks, then to each corner of his lips. He wanted to venture further down—and he totally would have, if they hadn’t have had a nosy audience. He was surprised Weevil had let him get away with this much. (He was being spoiled.)

When he pulled away, Weevil was smiling—brighter than supervolcanoes and asteroid impacts. It changed Rex every time he saw it—reverted him, little by little, back to something prehistoric and primal. It was evolution, he figured. Extinction, more likely.

“Come on,” Weevil said, offering a hand that Rex gladly took, “let’s get going.”

But somehow, Malcolm was right.

Life found a way.

**Author's Note:**

> Here at Synthpop Industries, we strive to make the longest, stupidest 5+1 fics physically imaginable. Thank you for your continued support and hrrrrrrrrk 
> 
> This… _thing_ is the horrendous bastard love child of my soul-shattering anxiety over not being able to finish my own major I’m passionate about due to my own shortcomings… and my unhealthy obsession with Duel Links. Nothing quite like projecting your deep-rooted insecurities onto characters from your childhood. As they say, I’m sinking in a manner similar to that of a tar pit.  
>  I hope I did these two justice! I've never written a YGO fic before, so… new experience. I wanted to go more in depth about certain things, but this was already 10000x times longer than originally anticipated, ahaha. It’s so long, I feel like it’s not as polished as I wanted… but perfection takes patience, and patience is something I do not have.
> 
> Speaking of Duel Links, you should hit me up [on my tumblr](http://gavinner.tumblr.com/) and play with me! Or just chat! I mean, if you sat through 20k+ words of shrimpshripping bullshit, we have at least the one thing in common.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I appreciate it so very much!


End file.
